#that takes you only seconds to consume before it's shoving something else in your face

[earraigh]

some of you don't need to be medicated, you just need to delete some apps off your phone

[starstruckmoony]

Hi, could I request a enemies to lovers with Enzo? Love your writing :))

tysm for the request anon!! i am so so sorry for taking ages to post this but i got veryyyyyy carried away and it may or may not be too long BUT i hope you enjoy it and that it's similar enough to what you imagined <3

king of my heart.

masterlist , requests

pairing - lorenzo berkshire x reader

summary - you and lorenzo are both sore, jealous losers with egos the size of jupiter, so you decide that you hate one another and that academic competing is the way to go. you keep that up for six full years, until something rather unfortunate happens and destroys your entire game plan.

trope/tags - enemies to lovers, rivals to lovers, angst, fluff

word count - 12.8k

warnings - language, smoking

if there was one thing every single person who ever crossed your path knew about you, even if you were barely acquainted, was that you had sort of been raised without the ability to accept that you cannot always come out on top. it was simply incomprehensible. you'd been told that you were a gifted kid from the moment you became aware of your pathetic little existence. it did wonders to your ego. your smarts and determination amused your tutors, petrified them even. and the better you got, the more motivation it sparked in you.

you intended to keep things going your way when your acceptance letter for hogwarts arrived in the mail. you weren't worried, not even a little bit, and neither were your parents. being the best of the best was a running thing in your family.

unsurprisingly, it couldn't have started off better. your professors loved you. other kids envied you. each essay and exam result you'd ever recieved was the textbook definition of perfect. your grades were nicer that aphrodite's reflection in the mirror, as hermione had told you once. it was a lot coming from her. she was also amongst the few of the smartest, most hardworking students in your year, but you never felt threatened by her, or anybody else for that matter. there was, weirdly, no jealousy. on her part, at least, considering you so very effortlessly secured your spot as top of the class and never let anybody take it. she'd always be happy for you like the good friend she was, proudly patting you on the back, yet you couldn't help but think if she ever felt a little angry behind that supportive smile of hers.

and funny enough, you were finally able to stop pretending to know what it was like one fine wednesday before the christmas holidays. you had come into class more confident than ever that morning, smugly waiting for your potions essay results. you were hoping for a hundred, but a ninety nine, maybe even a ninety eight, didn't seem so bad either. that would have been, if lorenzo berkshire hadn't got his essay back with a score better than yours. he, much like yourself, was just another sore loser who craved academic validation like a drug, silently fuming whenever somebody surpassed him. he had dealt it with for months, watching you ace everything from charms to transfiguration, and always being second to you. the jealousy consumed his entire being, and he was kind of going mental, so you one could only imagine how ecstatic he was when he saw your face twist with dread after snape praised him in front of everybody. he wouldn't have hidden that mocking grin on his face if you held a knife to his throat and it made you want to choke him to death, for lack of better term.

"l/n." he sang as he successfully caught you in the corridor right after the said lesson. twat. you ignored him and increased the speed of your steps, biting the inside of your cheek, so hard that it began to sting. you didn't instantaneously realise how desperate he was to get your attention, but it became a lot clearer when he stood in front of you, entirely blocking your path. your little attempts to confuse him and avoid the situation were useless. it was kind of pathetic.

"what do you want?" simply shoving him to the ground and acting like it never happened would have done the job, but god forbid you swallowed your pride for once. 

"c'mon, don't be so pissy, i'm just trying to make conversation." you saw right through him, anyone would. him? wanting to make conversation with you? after death-glaring you every lesson for three months straight? and then bursting your bubble and being so smug about it? you almost scoffed, "you're in my way."

"oh, my apologies." he moved to the side and bowed dramatically, waiting for you to leave. you rolled your eyes, and took a single step forward, just to have him come right back to his original spot.

"move." you tried to shove him and even attempted to run for it, but he was faster than you. your nostrils flared, "you know that today was just dumb luck, right?" you crossed your arms, thinking you'd get under his skin, but there was no sign of change on his face. on the contrary, he was more accomplished than ever. you were fuming.

"i wouldn't call it that." he tilted his head to the side, observing your face.

"alright then," you copied his movements, "plagiarism?" his smile fell a little. it made you a lot happier than it should have. you expected victory from that senseless squabble, but lorenzo wasn't the type of person who backed down so easily. that was something you should have known.

"you're projecting." he shrugged, blankly staring at you.

"projecting?" you almost stuttered.

"projecting. pick up a dictionary, yeah?" he gave your head a tiny pat, and left you standing in the hallway, dumbfounded, angry, and a little humiliated.

that moment alone set off a feud that changed the trajectory of your miserable lives forever. each time he did better than you, whether it was on an essay, an exam, flying lessons even, your urge to wipe his existence of the face of the earth got stronger. the feelings were mutual on his part. you went back and forth like that for a while, trying not to be that obvious about it, but one could only hide their true feelings for so long.

it started off with hushed insults, which got strategically thrown around every time you'd cross each other's path. having other people notice your diminishing confidence was proper nightmare fuel, so you kept it as subtle as possible. then it turned into shoving and pushing, which was enough to set off some alarm bells in the heads of your friends. neville had told you that it wasn't worth it, and draco, of all fucking people, had told lorenzo to tone it down, but you refused to listen. you offered a few empty promises, saying that you'll sort it out sooner or later (sort out as in make sure you never let lorenzo get a score higher than yours again, but that was not going to happen).

your sooner or later turned into a few godawfully long years. saying you hated him may have seemed like an overstatement, but there was no other way to describe that burning feeling of i want to fucking kill you that entirely took over you whenever you laid your eyes on him. it kept getting worse and worse, without you realising just how bad it had become. your little competitions had completely lost their significance. it didn't matter who was first anymore. it could be ron or pansy, and you wouldn't bat an eye. all you cared about was surpassing each other, even if you were among the average with your scores.

that being said, it became an open secret of sort. as stupid as you made your classmates out to be, they were not, and they quickly put the missing puzzle pieces together. one of them spread a rumour that you tried to kill lorenzo, or vice versa, you couldn't really remember. and frankly, you couldn't blame them. you had given them more than enough reasons to think that you hated his guts. the most ridiculous instance had to have been the one during potions class when snape assigned you to work together. you could have placed a bet of two million galleons that he did it on purpose. it was like he wanted you to fail.

lorenzo had managed to insult you before he even took a seat at your table, calling you too stupid to work with in front of the entire class. you told him that he was a daft idiot when he unwillingly slumped down into the empty seat next to you, which had only set him off more. you accepted your fates almost immediately, knowing that whatever task snape assigned to you wouldn't be done, even if it cost you your grades.

just like you predicted, you did everything but what you were supposed to; spilled every sort of liquid there was all over each other's things, broke a few glasses, set two notebooks on fire, and burnt a hole in the table. you had stuck him to his chair, too, and lost a few house points as a result.

***

a sane person would have reached a certain point and stopped, pushing all of those stupid grudges aside. forgive and forget, that whole talk. hopelessly, your friends thought you would have got over it as you were growing older and that you would have chosen basic human decency over some hurt feelings and an insignificant competition no one gave a shit about. but no. you were not sane. you were ruthless, and you continued trying to make each other miserable like your lives depended on it. you hated lorenzo berkshire, and he hated you just as much. you were too naive and caught up in it all to realise that it'll come right back for you later.

it was like some sick obsession. from obvious sabotaging during classes whenever you got assigned to work together (followed by unsatisfactory results you blamed the other for) to throwing insults at each other in the corridors where everybody was set to hear you, you had checked every single one off.

you called him a useless arsehole on a daily basis. he called you an insufferable bitch every time he saw you. you had cursed out each other during lessons and done even worse things when nobody was looking. and if anyone did see you and try to get involved and call you names, it was bad news for them. you were each other's enemies to insult and demean and degrade and ruthlessly bully, nobody else's. only you were allowed to call him a cockroach, and only he was allowed to call you a snake. your relationship with lorenzo was nothing you could explain to somebody with a fully functioning brain, even if you tried.

one night in your fifth year, you had successfully snuck out in search of some sort encyclopaedia to help you out with your DADA assignment. none of the books which you were allowed to use did good enough of a job at making it easier, so you were hoping that the restricted section would have something better to offer - which it did. you couldn't recall the last time your trip to the library was that short.

to make things even better, you successfully avoided bumping into an annoying brunette who made your life oh so entertaining (unbearable). lorenzo wasn't anywhere to be seen. you smiled to yourself, feeling a sense of freedom at last. you were praying that the prick got bored of looming around the corridors all alone like a loser, waiting to terrorise you.

you began humming a tune you heard dean play on his old gramophone (one that got confiscated), and skipped around the corner to make your way to the grand staircase. mistake number one. you tripped over something, someone, but managed to stay on your feet as opposed to falling face-first onto the ground. you didn't even have to look back to know who it was.

"my, my, out rebelling again?" lorenzo leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, smirking in satisfaction when he noticed how you were grimacing. he stepped on one of the books you dropped, refusing to move when you tried to snatch it back.

"do you mind?" you spat, aggressively pulling it from under his foot. you straightened out your clothes and dusted yourself off before tucking the literature you had picked up under your arm.

"stealing?" he raised an eyebrow.

"borrowing." you corrected.

"without permission?" he tilted his head to the side in faux amusement, "i wonder what would happen if i alerted a professor about this."

"and you'd tell them what?" you scoffed, barely able to hold your laughter in, "that you saw me stealing while you were sneaking out to go for a casual wank?" what a fucking idiot. you rolled your eyes, turning away from him with the intention to walk away from the scene. you were not in the mood for his bullshit.

"yeah, yeah, run away like you always do." he uttered in disappointment, yawning. he knew exactly which buttons to push, and it wasn't surprising. you were familiar with each other's habits and emotions more than you'd like to admit. you stopped in your tracks. sighing, you set the books down onto the stone tiles, and spun around to face him once again.

"aguamenti." you cast the spell with an evil smile, and in a matter of seconds, a wave of water was shot straight in lorenzo's direction, leaving him soaking wet. he gasped out in shock; his clothes clung to his body. the water was unbearably cold, it was so fucking freezing, he could barely move. the commotion was noisy enough to alert filch and his beloved ms. norris, but those were the last of your worries. your felt rather fulfilled, that was what mattered.

"you asked for it." you shrugged, but did not turn your back on him just yet. that would have been the easiest way for him to attack, so you mistakenly waited, thinking he would strike for you. he dug his wand out of his pocket, and muttered a spell, "vermiculus."

you whipped your head in the direction in which he pointed his hand, realising what happened a second too late. he had turned your precious books into worms. you yelped in surprise and stepped away from the disgusting mess on the ground, your back bumping into his chest. you turned to face him and gave him a harsh push, backing him up into the wall and shoving your wand into his face.

"uncast it." you demanded. he laughed. how stupid did you have to be to even think that he'd listen to you, "no."

"berkshire." your words came out louder than expected. you wouldn't have been shocked if you saw a teacher coming around the corner to reprimand the both of you for looming around so late, but you didn't care.

"undo the damn spell." you repeated, just about ready to strangle him if you deemed it necessary.

"no." he pushed you away and took a hold of his own wand. he tried to disarm you, but failed miserabley. two could play at that game, then "stupif-"

"what's going on here?" filch's scratchy voice stopped you mid-spell. your head snapped towards him, and you instinctively stuck your wand inside of your clothes as if he hadn't already seen it. being too preoccupied by trying to come up with an explanation that you hadn't previously used to get yourself out of trouble, you had forgotten about the slimy creatures crawling on the floor. a worm wiggled towards you, too close for comfort, and you scrambled to get away, clumsily bumping into lorenzo once again. he gave you a somewhat gentle shove to get you away, and you kicked him in response, right in the shin.

"she tried to drown me." he explained with an irritated groan, rubbing the sore spot on his leg.

"he destroyed school property." you added dramatically, wishing to kick him one more time. filch's eyes trailed over to the filth beside your feet, and he made a face of disgust before instructing you both to follow him to dumbledore's office.

the whole ordeal ended with the books being safely returned to their spot on the shelves of the restricted section, a half-assed DADA assignment and the two of you getting put on bathroom cleaning duty for seven days straight (no magic allowed). it was probably the biggest mistake of dumbledore's life.

the bathrooms were not cleaned properly once. in fact, they'd only end up in conditions which were about ten times worse than their default ones. lorenzo was too busy spilling bucketfuls of water, dirty or clean, all over you to care whether he scrubbed the junk off every single sink there was (payback for the stunt you pulled on him in the corridor), and you were too busy hitting him with funny smelling toilet brushes (made sure you got all that rubbish into his hair, too) to polish the tiles and mirrors to perfection like you were told to do. it was disgusting and sickeningly entertaining at once. dumbledore considered punishing you with some other method, but gave up seeing what the boys' toilets looked like after night four. not even detention was able to come between the two of you. limits and common sense weren't either.

***

in your sixth year, the unimaginable happened. there wasn't a single soul who saw it coming, not even yourselves. maybe it was magic. maybe it was a sign from the universe. maybe some higher power did everybody justice. whatever it was, it sent your professors into a spiral. their shitty damage control was finally paying off, as cruel as it turned out to be.

classes had become increasingly more difficult than they were in previous years. to follow, to manage, to keep track of, and everything in between. mcgonagall had pulled you outside twice, asking you what was wrong after she had noticed that you were falling behind. many of your peers were, actually, but nobody would have ever expected it from you. the results you'd achieve weren't always as perfect as they were in your first year, though you had never struggled to get past eighty points until then. it was singlehandedly the worst thing that could have ever happened to you. priorities were hard to sort out, so there was a noticeable decline in your performance. you were absolutely miserable, and it did not get better, only worse. so bad that you had forgotten that you had a certain slytherin to compete with.

it was the day before halloween night, lessons had come to an end. your friends scattered around different places – some to the great hall, some to hogsmeade, some headed straight to bed, all intending to clear their minds after a stressful week of difficult assignments and dreadfully challenging essays. nearly every student left the transfiguration classroom with a relieved smile, happy that even their low scores ensured them a pass. hermione got a ridiculous amount of praise for her outstanding results, and even an encouraging pat on the back from mcgonagall.

so, a wonderful end of october for everybody but yourself. your expectations weren't high when you handed your toughest essay in. you thought you'd get sixty points at best. not hoping for much, yet still trying to ignore the worst possible outcome - one that was bound to get you someday like proper karma. but that wouldn't actually happen, would it? there was no way. it was impossible. you felt like a bloody idiot.

you failed. you fucking failed. for the first time in your life. and it was much more humiliating than you had imagined. you were so upset with yourself that you hadn't even bothered to pester lorenzo about his results, and strangely, he hadn't approached you either. no glances, no death glares, no hushed insults. not during the lesson, not after.

you left the transfiguration classroom trying your hardest not to cry, ignoring all of your friends and wishing to get out of the castle as soon as possible. you needed to be alone. you weren't looking for anybody's comfort, validation or their empty words of sympathy that would lose their meaning the moment you fixed the mess you were in. so you went to the black lake; where very little people preferred spending time, where you could be at peace with your own thoughts, and where you could catch a much needed break, even if it was only for a little while.

you slumped down onto the grass with a thump, bringing your knees up to your chest and letting your tears fall. you failed. for merlin's sake, you failed. it was like everything you had ever known was suddenly gone. you weren't even worried about what your parents or professors would say. truthfully, you couldn't give less of a damn. you were so disappointed that you had blocked out everything and everyone else, or whatever stupid opinion and solutions they might have had to offer. everyone, except for lorenzo and that dumb game you two were, for an even dumber reason, still playing. he must have been oh so happy to hear about your failure. he'd never let you live it down, you knew it.

"l/n?" speak of the fucking devil. he always had fantastic timing.

"get out of my sight before i throw you into the lake." you spat, wiping your tear-stained face with your sleeve, not looking at him.

"shiver me timbers." he sang, not feeling threatened at all.

"berkshire." you warned, turning your head towards him and meeting his gaze. you shouldn't have moved. worry flashed through his face for a brief moment when he caught a glimpse your puffy eyes, and he pressed his lips together, guilty. could he actually bring himself to pester you while you were in such a terrible condition? no, he couldn't, regardless of the resentment he felt towards you.

he cleared his throat and took a step closer. you sighed, staring back at the landscape spread out in front of you without uttering a word, "what happened?" he questioned hesitantly.

"nothing that concerns you." you attempted to shut him down. he raised both of his eyebrows, a little amused, "someone upset my favourite rival," he scoffed, "of course it concerns me."

you rolled your eyes, "just leave, will you?" but did you really want him to? your voice shook as you spoke. you despised the part of you that was wishing for him to stay. you wanted to be alone more than anything, but you knew you'd break down again if he listened to your plea and left you there. you'd take his overused insults over failure any day.

"not until you tell me what happened." your jaw clenched, and you muttered a quiet curse, knowing that he most likely wouldn't let up. as if that one would miss out on an opportunity to annoy you. he settled down in the grass, right next to you, waiting.

you sat in silence for what felt like forever. he didn't push you to speak again, and you were pretty reluctant to say a single thing. not even calling him names seemed tempting. you sighed for the nth time, starting to tear up again, "i got my essay back with thirty points." you sniffled, silently preparing yourself to get made fun of.

"fuck," you heard him mumble, and he scratched his head shortly before speaking, "if it makes you feel better, i got twenty eight." getting on your nerves was always in his best interest. although, having to see you so seriously upset was not on his bucket list, not anymore. you stared at him in shock, frowning, "what?"

he nodded. the look on his face was so sullen that you were starting to believe him, "are you not taking the piss?"

he snorted, "i wish i was," he avoided your gaze, "i, uh," he pursed his lips in thought, letting out a breath of frustration, "i was convinced i'd do well even if i started last minute... without research, but uh, guess i was wrong." you hummed, doubtful.

"why are you telling me all this?" you shook your head and trailed your eyes back to the lake, finding it rather difficult to believe that he was being so... nice. it was your first normal conversation and you had no clue what to make of it.

"who else am i supposed to tell it to?" he responded, annoyed. you bit the inside of your cheek, just as irritated, picking up a pebble. you examined it shortly before throwing it into the water.

lorenzo watched you curiously, having very little to say, which was terribly weird in itself. lorenzo berkshire not having a single unnecessary, offending comment to offer? your failures had truly taken a toll on you, completely.

"i can't believe we both fell off." you said in wonder, throwing another rock below the surface.

"right," he agreed, without an urge to backtalk, "fucking hell, i've no reason to hate you now." he blurted out, horrified by his own words.

"fantastic, now i suck at that too." you let out a dry, emotionless chuckle. you weren't crying anymore, just silently fuming at lorenzo for being the one to stop it without even properly trying.

"you suck at everything." he corrected.

"i take after you." you retorted nonchalantly.

"dumbass." he bit back a smile.

"dickhead." you were struggling just as hard. holding in your laughter was never more challenging, but you were determined not to break character.

you found yourselves in an eerily comfortable silence. by the looks of it, things would be alright. knowing that he messed up too somehow put you at ease. not even because you were happy to him fail, but more at the thought that it just happened to be at the same time as you. you found a certain dose of comfort in it. it was written in the stars, as it seemed.

"get lost now." you broke the bubble you found yourselves in. it was about time you got back on track. there was no way you'd get all friendly and gushy with him, even after whatever that was.

"alright, alright." he stood up, groaning as he did so. he dusted off the pieces of grass that got stuck to his trousers.

he stared back at the lake shortly, waiting to see if you'd say anything else he could offer a witty response to. he was a bit sad when you didn't, and he shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers, sighing, "well, i shall see you-"

"never." you finished that for him.

"perfect." he added, turning on his heel and heading towards the castle. you allowed yourself to glimpse at him one last time, simply not being able to let him have the last word.

"you've got some on your arse." you were talking about the remainder of the grass that was stuck to his clothing. he stopped to clean it up, and then flipped you off wordlessly.

you thought that was the last of your civilised interactions. there was no reason for you to bore your mind with it. you happened to fall behind at the same time and it gave you a decent bonding moment, but it was nothing more than that. just two people who claimed they didn't like one another very much talking properly for once. nothing, it was nothing. simple as that. so you weren't able to pinpoint why you kept looking back on it nearly every day, or why you felt so guilty for calling him stupid and useless, or why making fun of him for getting a lower score than you wasn't rewarding anymore, or why competing so fiercly was no longer satisfactory. and why he too, happened to feel just the same. maybe you had grown out of it.

you blamed it on the stress. you did have lots of different things occupying your mind anyway - such as your major arithmancy exam that you decided to pull an all nighter for.

for the first time in a while, you stayed inside the library past closing hours. madam pince wasn't too happy about it, but she liked you enough to let you crash there and warned filch not to throw you outside if he happened to notice you during his nightly patrol. the woman had some interesting tactics up her sleeve, none of which you ever questioned.

you swore, probably for the tenth time in the past two minutes, crumpling up yet another piece of parchment. you had to start over a ridiculous amount of times. the pile of rubbish on the floor was growing larger by the second. ripped up paper, bottles of ink, broken feathers, it was definitely a sight. there was no way you were getting through all of that on your own. and oh how that angered you. you rarely ever needed assistance with anything, but this was just a little bit above your level. that enraged you even more. a helping hand was starting to sound promising.

"you're still here?" you didn't even flinch, knowing all too well who that voice belonged to. did god or the devil just answer your prayers? you never got past your little habits of leaving the dormitories to do whatever there was to be done around the castle almost every night, so there he went, running into you again. lorenzo peeked out from behind the bookshelves in front of you, smiling like a little kid who was just about to do something egregiously silly. you couldn't not grin back, despite being angry.

"you're still here?" you repeated his question, crossing your arms.

"i asked first." he moved towards your desk, pulling out an empty chair and settling there next to you without even asking if you wanted him there. weird, that one.

"alright, and?" you teased further. he bumped your shoulder with his own. he wanted something. punching him suddenly sounded like a fine option. he looked over your arm to examine your notes.

"arithmancy?" he glared at you, kind of bemused. it was another subject he was that awfully good at, unlike you. you weren't terrible, but not exactly the best either. an infuriating thing.

"my favourite." you responded sarcastically, throwing your quill across the table. he hummed, sitting back in his chair, but not taking his eyes off of you. he definitely wanted something.

"what?" you could sense it already. he was gonna mock you again.

"do you need help with that, perhaps?" or maybe not. you looked at him, skeptical.

"from you?" you raised an eyebrow.

"well, i mean, yeah." he shifted in his spot, as if he was anxious. you did a double take, and then burst out laughing, wiping away a non-existent tear. he was just too damn funny. him helping you? that was a good one. you carried on with that little performance of yours for the next minute until it hit you that he wasn't joking.

"are you serious?" you asked, just to confirm. there was absolutely no chance.

"look, i can leave-" he stood up, "no," you grabbed a fistful of his sweater and pulled him back down. he yelped, startled, "what's your deal?" you weren't letting him get away with that so easily.

"what do you mean?" he was geniuenly confused.

"don't play fucking dumb," you jabbed a finger into his chest, "why are you being so kind to me all of a sudden?"

he laughed uncomfortably, scratching the nape of his neck, "well, i thought, you know, since it seems like we're no longer on about hating each other, that-"

"oh." you interrupted him, chuckling in disbelief. you shook your head, rubbing your temples in frustration and then letting your arms fall to your sides, "look, berkshire, just because i'm not trying to kill you anymore doesn't mean i want to be friends."

"what!? for fuck's sake, you're impossible." he stood up once more, this time darting out of your reach.

"here we go again." you rolled your eyes. you just couldn't interact without quarreling, could you? he paced around inbetween the bookshelves before returning to your table, "you're not exactly giving me any reasons to be nice right now."

"i never asked of you to be nice." you argued.

"you could appreciate me trying." he retorted. you had no idea what on earth he was trying to achieve. you could only think of so many explanations, "why? so that you could gain my trust and then stab me in the back when it's convenient for you?"

"that's what this is about?" he muttered something under his breath, "i thought we were past that rubbish."

you wanted to laugh hysterically, "okay, we may have pushed the resentment aside, but you can't exactly expect me to trust you."

he understood that, unbeknownst to you, "i never said that you needed to trust me," he sighed, leaning over the table, "listen, i offered to help you because i can see you're struggling. i'm not here to sabotage you if that's what you're worried about. i'd be wasting my time." he straightened his posture, standing there with his arms crossed.

"because i'm already terrible enough and don't need anyone's interference to properly fuck up, right?" you were prepared to tell him to bugger off if he refused to give you the answer you were looking for, furious at him and yourself.

he paused, hesitant. you were so fucking stubborn, and he loved you for it, "correct." alright then.

you picked up your quill, "sit down."

you got your exam back with a shocking score of eighty-nine, surpassing even hermione. not lorenzo, but you were second, and that was enough to have your ego flying right back through the roof.

i told you you could do it, he said, but not without me, he had to point out. you had to give him that. how could you not? he casually decided to save your life without you even asking for it. if it weren't for him, you most likely would have majorly fucked up on that exam. that's not saying that it wasn't difficult. he had no patience and you had even less, but you had somehow survived that night in the library without biting each other's heads off or getting into any additional fights. he even followed you back to your dorm, an offer he didn't allow you to refuse and one that you were too exhausted to complain about.

in the few weeks that followed, you decided that it was for the best that you block out whatever happened between you that night. christmas holidays were approaching, and you couldn't let that ruin your mood. lorenzo told you that mattheo said that it was a shift in the matrix. you had no idea what that meant, it sounded horrifyingly muggle, but you agreed for the sake of agreeing. a shift in the matrix, bloody nonsense. a coincidence, you called it. an accident, even. an accident that helped you out tremendously and made you reconsider lorenzo on nights when you couldn't sleep, but still an accident. 

who were you kidding? something had definitely changed. other students started noticing it too.

you had gradually become somewhat friendly rivals who'd rub their own success into each other's faces for the laughs till they got threatened with a jinx or tickled to death. some occasional name calling too, just not as intense. but you weren't friends. nothing near it. you had done a pretty good job at convincing yourself you never would be. treating him a little better than usual was the farthest you'd go trying to mend all those years of jealousy and grudges. that was what you started living by, pushing away that strange tingling sensation that would coarse through you every time his hands happened to brush against yours when you walked side by side.

it is exactly why you almost spilled acidic liquid all over the table and burnt a hole in it again when he sat next to you during potions one fine afternoon.

snape was visibly mortified by the sight, partially because of that incident from two years prior (when you almost set the entire classroom on fire), and partially because he couldn't believe that mcgonagall was actually onto something when she purposefully failed you both. it would go down in history as one of the most ridiculous moments of his career. he sent a warning glare your way before beginning the lesson.

"excuse you?" you whispered once professor snape finally turned his back to the class, raising both of your eyebrows in question. was lorenzo asking to get violated?

"harry took my seat." he pointed towards the table where he usually sat. and shockingly enough, there was harry, sitting next to draco, for whatever sick and twisted reason. you gaped at them, then at lorenzo. not looking into that deeper was maybe for the better.

okay then. you didn't respond, trying to get into taking some notes like you were previously instructed. that would have been easy (it was for the first quarter of the lesson), if lorenzo's presence wasn't keeping you so alert, stopping you from focusing on what you deemed more important, "merlin, can you breathe a little quieter?" you snapped.

he purposely inhaled louder than he normally would, grinning proudly when your eyes rolled back into your brain. you kicked him under the table. he yelped, but oddly, covered it up with a cough. you glared at him, doubtful. that was not the reaction you were expecting to get.

you resumed trying to copy the crucial bits from the chapter snape assigned you all to analyse, very poorly. it was kind of impossible. you weren't used to having lorenzo sit so close to you for such an extended amount of time. ignoring him was unimaginably hard. your notes had never looked worse. words missing, constant mistakes, sensless scribbles. you reached for a new pot of ink after seeing that you had run out, and then felt his finger poke at your side.

you flinched, catching a glimpse of your professor who's head was still buried in the pile of assignments he needed to grade. he hadn't noticed you. good. but then lorenzo did it again, right where you were most ticklish, because he knew. you swatted his hand away, not missing the way he smiled to himself. little shit.

you reached to poke him too, and when you tried to pull away, he took a hold of your wrist, not letting go. he had a lot of good defense tactics up his sleeve. you didn't try to yank your arm out of his grip instantly, which was the perfect opportunity for him to tickle at your side with his free hand. this time, you held back a startled giggle, kicking him under the table one more time. he snorted, resuming his little game.

you were both sweating trying not to make too much noise, but neither of you was letting up, not letting the other have the satisfaction of winning. he eventually moved his chair closer to yours with the excuse to tickle you more effectively. your legs were touching under the table, but only because it was easier for you to kick him that way. it went on for at least fifteen minutes, until snape finally lifted his head, his eyes on the class. you separated, thinking you were being slick about it, when it was the least fitting explanation for what had been going on. the two of you had your lips pressed together, trying not to laugh. your professor could only sigh in response. at least you didn't set anything ablaze.

hermione tucked her arm under yours in the hallway when your lesson ended, grinning mischevously, "would you like to tell me what happened just now?" 

you scoffed, rolling your eyes playfully, "huh? i don't know what you're on about." you played dumb, despite knowing exactly what she was getting at. and you had no idea why. it's not like you had anything to hide.

"i think you do." she pushed. there was not a chance for you to get out of that conversation.

"really? i truly don't." you still tried, though. acting foolish was your only escape route.

"y/n." she dragged out, laughing and pulling you along with her. potions were your final lesson of the day, so you were already able to picture her desperate attempts to pull some information out of you all the way until bedtime.

"what? we were just fighting." you finally gave in. you knew you would have to eventually, but you loved your free time a little too much to let her annoying interrogation tactics drag on for so long.

"so you do know what i'm on about." she teased, scarily invested.

"what else could you possibly be on about?" you snapped, pushing away that uncomfortable feeling that settled in your chest. you had no reason not to tell her anything, so you couldn't pinpoint why you were feeling so guilty all of a sudden.

"the way you two sat closer together than every couple in our year?" she exclaimed, astonished by how shamelessly you were avoiding the subject.

you gasped, feeling a bit offended, or maybe called out. you couldn't tell which one it was, "that is not what happened." that was an overexaggaration if you ever heard one. was she out of her bloody mind? sometimes you thought that she enjoyed setting you off as much as lorenzo did.

you stepped through the portrait hole with the rest of your housemates, pushing through the crowd to get your dormitories faster. you wanted a nice shower, some peace and quiet for reading, and then decent sleep. it was that simple. you survived the walk through the common room without anyone asking additional invasive questions, immediately heading for the toilet once you arrived to your dorm.

you really needed that shower. it made you feel whole again. you stepped out after putting some comfortable clothes on, skipping over to your bed and then cursing out loud when you realised what was on it. amongst your own, there was lorenzo's fucking book. you had accidentally taken it when you scrambled to collect your things once class ended.

you could have just given it to him tomorrow, or not given it back at all. like he'd know who took it. it was incredibly tempting, but it also felt unnecessarily mean. what if he needed it to study that night? you brushed it off, not like it was your problem anyway. you sat down onto the mattress, picking up a novel from your nightstand and throwing the other books straight to the carpet so you could comfortably settle on your bed. you then put it back. you didn't feel like reading anymore. you laid there, thinking. peace was never an option in your world.

you groaned, snatching his book up from the floor and venturing back into the common room. you hadn't bothered to explain yourself to anybody, and you continued trotting over to the dungeons with a neutral expression on your face (neutral as in i am very much internally raging and if anybody tries to talk to me i might use the imperius curse on them). very useless it was, that relaxing shower of yours.

none of the slytherins lounging on the sofa questioned you, your appearance was pretty telling. good thing you ran into mattheo on the way there. getting in wouldn't have been so easy otherwise. you disappeared in the direction of their dormitories, stopping right in front of lorenzo's door. you swallowed harshly, begenning to get nervous. something was wrong with you.

you hesitated before knocking, tapping your foot against the ground furiously as you waited. "one second!" lorenzo yelled from the other side. it sounded like something had fallen over. the noise was followed by a few curse words and some shuffling before the door opened.

much to your dismay, you were met with a bare chested lorenzo, wearing nothing but a pair of trousers which loosely hung around his hips. his hair was wet, and his cheeks were a tinted with a light shade of pink. he had stepped out of the shower merely three minutes before you showed up. you inhaled sharply, swallowing the sound of surprise that almost escaped you and feeling your face heat up. his eyes went wide, given that he was taken aback much like yourself. you were the last person he was expecting to find on the other side of the door.

"hi." he greeted awkwardly, pulling his trousers up a bit as if it would help. you opened your mouth to speak, then closed it. opened it, before closing it again. you were pretty sure you resembled a damn fish. whatever was happening to you, you did not like it one bit.

"i- you- we- ithinkthisisyours." you finally spluttered, slamming the book into his chest. his hand touched yours momentarily when he grabbed it so that it wouldn't drop onto your feet. you felt lightheaded.

lorenzo was kind of freaking out, but only kind of, not even bothering to look at what you had given him at first. he was a little too busy staring at your blushing face, wondering what the hell was going on and why his heart was in his throat all of a sudden, "are you alright?" he queried, concerned.

"i am perfectly fine." that was a lie. 

"ah," he nodded, then eyed the piece of literature in his hands shortly as he slowly figured what it was, "oh! thank you."

you laughed in misery, "okay!" before shutting the door in your own face. you tripped and almost fell down the stairs as you ran, still flushed and your heart beating in a way that you found a little too unusual to push away.

you received a few judgemental glares from the students you had run past. the question marks were practically visible above their heads. you were too busy going hysterical to sneer at them for staring. you burst through the door of your dorm, breathless and blushing, "what the fuck?"

somewhere back inside the dungeons, a confused lorenzo turned to face his friends, still holding the book you had given to him. he had no idea what on earth happened, or why you reacted the way you did, or why he, deep down, found it more adorable than he'd like to admit. he groaned, falling face-first onto his bed. what the fuck, indeed. christmas holidays never looked more promising.

and oh how you regretted waiting for them with so much anticipation. you were supposed to get a break. from books, assignments, essays, whatever lorenzo was doing to you. hogwarts was supposed to be all yours. you weren't heading home that year. it was your parents' twentieth anniversary, so there was no point in going back, considering that you wouldn't see them (you didn't exactly have friends in your hometown either). they'd be having the time of their lives in the alps, and you'd be regretting every decision you had made up until that point.

not only because you were already bored out of your mind waiting for your friends to return, but because you saw lorenzo sitting at the slytherin table when you walked into the great hall on christmas eve. the image of him opening the door two weeks prior flashed through your mind. it happened often, in the most inconvenient situations too. you were hoping you didn't look too flushed.

"what are you doing here?" he questioned in amusement once you slid over to him, an equally puzzled expression on your face. "i could ask you the same thing." 

"all in good time." he cleared his throat, awkward. it was weird, but you didn't think much of it just yet. instead you sighed, taking a quick look around, and then speaking, "my parents ditched me for a skiing trip."

he snorted, motioning over to the very empty seat beside him. you sat down, no thoughts behind it. he was the only person among the ones who stayed for the holidays who you knew enough to hold a conversation, so it's not like you had better options. besides, that was your chance to see if there was more to his sudden change in behaviour. you were unnerved at the idea of even having the desire to do such a thing.

"what's your excuse?" you reached over his arm to grab a piece of toast, as well as some jam and chocolate spread.

"parents as well." you didn't miss the way he shifted uncomfortably. you put down your knife and propped your arms on the table, eyeing him expectantly. he held back shortly, and you couldn't blame him. who were you to think that he'd trust you with a possible family issue?

"i was told that i'm a disappointment and i'm not allowed home until i get my grades in tact." he stabbed the bacon in his plate aggressively, not looking at you. your jaw dropped in shock.

"in tact?" you uttered in disbelief. it was practically common knowledge that lorenzo exceeded you in a lot of subjects, a little more than half of them actually, so in your mind, this shouldn't have even been a problem. he was one of the top students. everybody knew that. your parents expected you to do well too, but they weren't that pushy or strict. yeah, receiving a howler for momentarily falling behind in october was aggravating, but nothing that you couldn't bear. lorenzo's, however, were crossing a line.

he hummed, picking at his food, "don't say anything." he sighed, it almost sounded like a plea. he couldn't just ask you for comfort, or ask of you to understand. faux sympathy was the last thing he needed.

"no, it's just–" you chewed on the inside of your cheek and picked up your knife again, spreading some jam over the piece of toast you grabbed previously, "you're not a disappointment, that's bullshit." you bit into the crunchy bread, chewing it slowly, a sour expression on your face. lorenzo went a bit red, stumbling over his words before getting out a clumsy i know, followed by a hesitant thanks anyway. 

you said nothing for the remaining few minutes of breakfast, just eating in silence while other students chatted in background. when you were exiting the great hall together to return to your respective dorms, you made eye contact with mcgonagall for a brief moment. she offered you a proud smile, yet with a hint of mischief behind it. you had never been more confused.

you spent the first half of christmas day alone in the gryffindor common room, reading some trashy muggle romance novel you found under hermione's bed a couple of nights before. it was one of the worst books you had ever picked up, but there was something so annoyingly addicting about it that you just couldn't give it up. it left you feeling empty and lonely, and with a strong desire to fling yourself straight into the depths of the black lake.

"christ, l/n, why do you look so sullen?" you shut your eyes, exhaling through your nose. just what you needed. you weren't even gonna question lorenzo was doing there. you had a clue.

"you don't wanna know." you tossed the book across the room, internally celebrating when he decided not to investigate further.

he made a face, "merry christmas?"

"likewise." you replied blandly. when you didn't tell him to get lost, he jumped onto the sofa, getting comfortable next to you. he didn't look all too happy either.

you sat there for good twenty minutes, staring at the fire like your entire worlds were crumbling in front of your eyes. it didn't occur to the either of you how awful it would feel to spend christmas all alone for the first time. no presents, no childhood foods, no hugs from mum in the morning. you even missed your spoiled cousins who would nag you to play with them each time you visited their house on boxing day.

it fucking sucked, but god, at least lorenzo was there. you'd push aside everything that happened between you in the previous years just for a twinge of affection. something came over you, and you lowered your head onto his shoulder, almost sighing in relief when he didn't shove you away. he scooted closer and rested his head on top of yours, not speaking.

from that moment onward, you saw each other every day. he'd show up at your dorm at random moments and you'd show up at his at even worse ones. you'd take walks in the snow together and come back with soaking wet clothes and red noses. you'd smoke in the courtyard before bed after making sure the coast was clear. you'd go to hogsmeade and fight over who was gonna pay for the butterbeer until you came up with a nonsensical compromise. you'd sneak out at night to steal books from the restricted section of the library and then read them under covers in the slytherin dorms. you'd sometimes fall asleep next to each other and then act like nothing happened in the morning.

***

you expected it all to fade to nothing once everybody else came back to hogwarts, but then it didn't. you still took walks in the snow and argued over butterbeer and snuck out after midnight (and had to clean several toilets after getting caught almost every time). he still helped you with arithmancy without asking for anything in return, and you'd sometimes kiss him on the cheek if you were in a good mood. you thrived off of the expressions that would paint his face whenever you did that.

but with the return of other students also came whispers and rumours, following you around like shadows. you ignored them tactfully, not wanting to give anybody the satisfaction of confirming that their silly theories may have been right all along. especially not hermione. she wouldn't let you forget that until you perished. she'd probably leave a note on your grave too, so you'd have that humiliating reminder haunting you in the afterlife.

"i thought you two hated each other." mattheo deadpanned one evening after lorenzo had brought you to the slytherin common room, straight into the damn snake pit. you were squashed together on the sofa, a large book splayed open across your laps, not getting read. it was one of the stolen ones. all of his friends were there, watching you like hawks.

"we do." you responded nonchalantly, taking the cigarette that lorenzo handed you. you took a long drag before putting it back between his lips.

"then why do you spend so much time together?" draco was very obviously judging you. he of all people should have understood. lorenzo rolled his eyes.

"you are in no place to talk, mister i hate potter but snog him in my off time." blaise took your side, bless his soul, and tossed theodore's shoe in his direction. shutting draco up was easier than you would have thought.

"no, but why?" mattheo repeated draco's question, propping his chin up into his palm and observing you curiously.

"maybe, they're– wait, what do you call that?" theodore leaned into pansy, hoping she had an answer.

"masochists?" she replied casually and lit a cigarette herself.

you choked on your spit. lorenzo almost burnt a hole in the sofa. but then pansy brushed her friend off, staring at the two of you with a mischievous grin, "not really, i think they're just bad liars."

and she was so bloody right. hate was the last thing that could be used to describe your relationship. third year you's biggest nightmare was a better label for it, given that you couldn't even be in the same room as him without trying to turn him into something nasty.

present day you was having a difficult time stopping herself from trying to kiss him whenever he was in her presence. it was that fucking frustrating. you couldn't believe yourself. lorenzo was facing the same struggles, and you couldn't tell if he was worsening or subduing the tension by randomly touching you. not like you minded, you were loving it all and stopped bothering with trying to hide it from him. your ego may have been large, but your crush on him ended up being bigger.

potions class was usually the height of it all, although it wasn't the only period during which you got to sit next to your favourite rival. mcgonagall was was thriving, unlike snape, who simply could not get used to the positive energy surrounding you, or the way you were together each time he crossed your paths. seeing pure fear flash through his eyes at the beginning of every class was hilarious.

when lorenzo arrived, you felt yourself starting to smile and tried to push it away with the most unsettling thoughts you could muster. it did nothing. he sat down with a dramatic groan, and immediately started ranting about some minor issue he had run into that morning. he did that a lot. this time it was about his favourite pair of socks going missing. you sucked in practically everything he said, chuckled at the random curses, noticed every breath of frustration he released as he was rummaging through his bag. you didn't realise you were staring. lorenzo did, but he didn't comment on it. he liked when you were looking at him.

you failed to regsiter that the lesson officially began, but not much was happening, really. snape was telling you about felix felicis and how insanely difficult it was to make, while you were required to write down the most useful bits of the information he was giving out. when he finally sat down after assigning you to read an overly long passage, lorenzo shifted closer to you. you eyed him, puzzled.

"would you kill me if i asked you for a favour?" you focused half of your attention on the writing, half on him.

"depends what the favour is." you shrugged. he put his arm over the text to prevent you from reading. he wanted you to look at him. he had always wanted you to look at him. from the very moment your fued set off, it was one of those little annoying things that made your hatred for him stronger. not anymore, but it was still infuriating in its own way. you gave him your full attention. he may have seen some sparks fly. you had each other wrapped around your little fingers without even realising it.

he shifted even closer to you so that you could hear him better, considering that he had to whisper, "can you come to hogsmeade with me today?" his breath fanned over your ear as he spoke. you didn't respond, so he continued, "none of my friends want to and it would be stupid if i went alone. you do kind of owe me." ah, yes. for that time he saved you from detention after slughorn caught you two smoking in the astronomy tower. you shot him with an annoyed look. you both knew it was exaggerated and what your answer would be, yet you still played around with it. that's the way things went. he smirked. bitch.

"fine." he was so smug about it, you could choke him and snog him at the same time. he got his arm away from your textbook, but didn't retrieve his chair. you were squeezed next to one another despite having more than enough space. your arms were touching, and so were your legs beneath the table. you moved not a muscle, and neither did he. you had grown to like having him sit so close to you. it made you feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside, helping you ignore the freezing winter air and the thick layer of snow covering the ground outside.

you met him in the courtyard after a quick change of clothing following the end of your classes for that week. when hermione asked you where you were heading and why you won't be staying in the common room with the rest of your friends, you told a half truth. that you were heading to hogsmeade, but then bolted out the door before she was able to ask with whom. she would guess either way.

"i forgot to ask you why we were doing this in the first place." you spoke as you left the school grounds, your hands shoved into your pockets and your face hidden inside of your fluffy scarf. you were a little cold. lorenzo was too, his nose was already going red. it was an adorable sight to see, but you weren't dumb enough to say that out loud.

"i wanna pick up a few poetry books." you bit your tongue, trying not to laugh at him.

"didn't know you could read." you snickered, it was stronger than you.

"you're so original," he mocked, "they're not for me. pansy's birthday's coming up so i figured i should get her something."

"oh." the disappointment in your tone was obvious.

all of your willingness to go with him left you in an instant. his presence was more irritating than ever. he furrowed his eyebrows as he watched you chew on the inside of your cheek, wondering if he said something wrong. again... or not. lorenzo was smarter than that.

"what, are you jealous?" he nudged you, teasing. yes. you hated yourself just a tiny bit for that, "no," you scoffed, "in your dreams, berkshire."

"we both know you can't fool me." he kept the act going. you gave him a shove, making him stumble. he almost tripped and fell in a pile of snow. it was very funny. he tried to get back at you, but you slipped out of his reach, laughing when he began chasing you.

spending time with him was like a getaway from all the things that drove you mad, even though he sometimes excelled at that. he became a friend you didn't know you needed and a friend you were pretty sure you were catching some major feelings for.

you entered the bookstore as your unplanned snowball fight came to an end, its warmth immediately engulfing you. after being in the cold for longer than intended, it was just what you desired. you stuck with lorenzo for the first few minutes, helping him out and leading him away from the large isle of erotic novels he accidentally found himself in. people were looking at you weird, especially your schoolmates, so you stepped away from the crowded bits of the shop and decided to check out different sections.

a certain book had caught your eye – its contents intrigued you, but the price did something opposite. you put it back on the shelf without second guessing yourself. you hadn't brought any money with you. you continued roaming through the different isles, browsing through various books while you waited for lorenzo to finish. you lost sight of him for a few minutes, too busy debating whether to make him come back with you here some other time so you could purchase whatever your heart desired.

for the time being, you'd have to leave the shop with empty hands. lorenzo was luckier and ended up getting five poetry books which all seemed to be written by the same author, except for one. he handed you the odd one out. you opened your mouth, ready to complain about your fingers being cold and not wanting to carry it. slowly, you realised what it was. your jaw dropped a little.

he had seen you looking at it ever so longingly when he went to check up on you after realising you had gone off on your own. he picked it up without hesitation. you were too stunned to thank him, too stunned to say anything, for the matter. but he wasn't exactly expecting a thank you. he was just happy that you liked it, grinning when you blushed and struggled to keep it cool.

"you shouldn't have done that." you chastised. those were the only words you could muster. he rolled his eyes, "deal with it."

you punched his shoulder. he didn't even flinch, "you're welcome."

when he threatened to ruin your life when you were twelve years old, this wasn't how you thought it would happen.

"i'm gonna kill you." you weren't exactly addressing him, more like talking to yourself.

"you're still on about that?" he huffed, pretending to be bored.

"lorenzo!" you groaned, he chuckled, "i love you too." your eyes almost popped out of their sockets. his weird confession seemed unserious, but your heart still fluttered. little did you know that he wasn't as oblivious as you imagined.

he was positively glowing at the reactions he was getting from you. his tiny year five crush on you had blossomed into something stronger after that moment at the lake a couple of months prior, and at last, the possibility of you feeling the same wasn't looking so small. if only you saw through his actions. all those offers of help, and his complete dismissal of your rivarly, and his clinginess, and how he stuck to you like glue whenever he got the opportunity.

your walk back to the castle surprisingly wasn't silent. you were chatting quietly, snickering amongst yourselves. your shoulders brushed occasionally, and so did your hands, and you thought your heart might burst. you shivered as the wind got stronger, pressing yourself a little closer to him.

"you okay?"

"huh?" you didn't register what he said at first, "oh, yes. just a little cold, that's all." you explained, not taking your eyes away from the pathway you were pacing across.

"let's hurry up, then." he took a hold of your hand, swiftly leading you back to the castle. you were so, royally fucked. you clutched onto the poetry book tightly, focused on regulating your breathing. your entire face was on fire, your breaths ragged, heart beating rapidly against your ribcage.

four days later, you caught a terrible cold after accidentally falling asleep by the window while you were reading. hermione said that she expected better from you. she was fantastic help. you were pretty sure you were dying. your limbs hurt. your head was throbbing. your sinuses were clogged. your throat felt like someone had stuck a knife into it. but did you skip any lessons because of it or at least visit madam pomfrey to see if she could do anything? no, you weren't that helpless. you'd deal with it on your own.

or try to, at least. you stumbled into class resembling a zombie, eager to sit down and hopefully not do much work for the day. you placed your arms on the desk, laying your head into them and shutting your eyes. you opened them only a few seconds later when lorenzo shifted next to you. you were met with his worried face, just a couple of centimeters away from yours. when you didn't budge, he touched your cheek with the back of his hand, frowning.

"you're burning up." he kept his voice down, but his tone was giving away the fact that your state concerned him greatly. you waved a dismissive hand, closing your eyes again. he poked you to make you look at him.

"have you went to madam pomfrey?" he questioned. you shook your head. if looks could kill, his probably would have.

"i'll go later." you reassured him poorly, just to get him to stop. the last thing you needed was getting all flustered and emotional because he was showing more interest in taking care of you than anybody else in your circle of friends.

"your later usually means never," he was right. you hated that. you grunted, hiding your reddening face. that was both from the fever and from him, "hey." he threw his arm around you when he didn't get a resonse. you leaned into his touch faster than you thought you would, just searching for any sort of warmth there was.

other students were giggling, but he couldn't care less, "y/n."

you lifted your head again, and then allowed it to fall against his shoulder. mcgonagall stepped through the classroom door shortly after that, her mouth dropping a little when she saw the position you were in. she was gonna scold you for displaying your affection so publicly, but lorenzo quickly explained the situation, and before you were able to protest, she shooed the both of you outside.

he immediately intertwined your fingers, walking at a slower pace than usual, not wanting to tire you more. as annoyed as that made you, you didn't pull your hand away, and instead kept your body close to his. he was muttering something, scolding you for being so dismissive and not getting this fixed right away. you were too exhausted to argue, but he was right anyway.

you inhaled sharply as your headache increased in intensity, latching onto his arm and stopping in your tracks. you shut you eyes, thinking it would help and ease it a bit. you felt him move to stand in front of you. his forehead fell against yours and his hands cupped your cheeks gently. you held onto him, taking a few deep breaths through your nose. his thumbs grazed over your skin ever so slightly, as if that his was his way of trying to soothe you.

eventually, your eyes fluttered open, but neither of you let the other go. lorenzo broke the silence between you, "you're so bloody stubborn."

"you're one to talk." you chuckled dryly, hugging him a bit tighter. he pressed a kiss to the top of your head, waiting for you to give him a sign that you were ready to walk again. when you nodded, he took your hand again, leading you to the hospital wing.

madam pomfrey had you going back to normal with a simple flick of her wand after a tiny scolding, and then she pinched lorenzo's cheek and called him a "good boy" for being so caring. the unexpected praise had his eyes going wide and he was blushing madly – you were never gonna let him forget that one.

she instructed you to come back if the cold returned, but she was addressing lorenzo more than she was you. a smart move on her part, the older woman knew you and your headstrong ways well enough. she ushered you out only after she made sure were in perfect shape to head back to class, though you couldn't do it without rubbing her comment into lorenzo face until he turned completely red again. he had to tickle you to get you to stop and you caused a bit of a commotion in the silent corridors, but that didn't matter. you returned to the transfiguration classroom with your pinkies intertwined, all eyes on you. you two really needed to talk.

and what are the odds of him being caring enough to check up on you later that day. he knew he wouldn't find you in your dorm, or the common room, or the library, or the astronomy tower. instead, he headed to the only other place on his mind, where the two of you often hung out on nights when neither of you could sleep.

you were sat on one of the stone walls in the courtyard, a cigarette in your hand, kind of forgotten. you hadn't noticed that it was burning out, or the occasional ash landing on your clothes. your thoughts were going places, recalling the many events that occured during the past few months, and what on earth you were going to do about your feelings. you could hide them from your friends for some time, but not from lorenzo. you blew out a frustrated breath, pinching the bridge of your nose. being straightforward with that idiot was always easy. you never had trouble with telling him exactly what you meant. 

the fact that you were anxious about it now was the most maddening thing in the world.

"what a depressing sight." you flinched, whipping your head in lorenzo's direction almost instantly. you couldn't tell if that was luck or misfortune. you snorted, rolling your eyes and offering him the remainder of your cigarette. he gladly took it, joining you in silence.

"why are you here?" you questioned.

"came to check up on you." he replied.

"i can take care of myself just fine." you patted his back. he seemed unphased. of course he was, he knew he'd win that argument.

you glimpsed up at the sky shortly. it was snowing just a little bit. you turned to lorenzo, a pleading expression on your face, "walk with me?"

he nodded, tossing the cigarette butt into the snow. you left the school grounds once again knowing that you wouldn't make it back before curfew, but that wasn't something the either of you dwelled on very much. there were more important things to get worried about.

it was obvious that you kept dodging the subject, settling for talking about things so insignificant that you would probably tell somebody to shut up if they brought them up in conversation on a normal day. being ballsy wasn't your thing anymore, as it seemed.

as cowardly as you felt, the sore winner in you wasn't letting you back down. a long internal debate and a silent minute of self-deprecation was what it took to make you finally speak your mind... to an extent, "have you ever felt incredibly guilty about being wrong about someone?"

lorenzo stared at you as if you were insane. it was a little too early on in the conversation for him to start connecting the dots. his street-smarts were sometimes lacking.

"you sure your cold didn't come back?" he pressed his hand against your forehead. you let out a startled laugh, observing his questioning face.

"what?" you spluttered, shoving your hands further into your pockets. the skeptical look in his eyes was making you nervous.

"you're admitting that you were wrong about something?" he sounded unconvinced, but there was a hint of jest in his voice.

you bit your tongue, clearing your throat awkwardly, "yes." you breathed out. he nodded, a way to tell you to go on. he was definitely interested. you were beginning to suspect that he already knew what you were gonna say.

"i mean," you grunted, cursing quietly, "you know when you spend years convinced that somebody is an awful person and claiming you hate their guts but then end up realising that they aren't nearly as terrible as you thought when you get to know them properly?" you explained frustratedly, resisting the temptation to kick the snow piling at your feet.

his mouth fell open in surprise for a moment, but he quickly shut it, running a hand through his hair, "uh, yeah, actually." he uttered nervously, scanning your face for any sign of humour. but you weren't playing around, and certainly not lying. he had been around you enough to be able to tell when you were being truthful.

you gave him a brief nod, looking everywhere but at him. you barely noticed that your hands were shaking. you contined walking on, not saying a single thing. if he were to tell you that he could hear your heart beating, you wouldn't even have the time to act surprised.

"i have to tell you something." he stopped in his tracks, grabbing your elbow in order to make your steps halt. you faced him, looking down at your feet, waiting for him to drop the bomb. he chewed on his lip anxiously, running a hand through his hair.

"i, um," he was struggling, not exactly knowing how to begin. how to formulate that sentence, even. he wished he could just show you. he reached to take your hand, and you let him, standing there motionless.

it was his turn to panic, "i- fuck." he met your gaze. you knew that look. you knew that bloody look he gave you when you were both thinking the same thing. two years prior it would have been something along the lines of i want to kill you. but it had turned into something that was a lot closer to i want to kiss you. you wanted to fucking cry. 

you nodded, breathing out and blinking your tears away. he almost sighed in relief, cupping your cheeks, and that's when your lips pressed against the last pair of lips you thought you'd ever be kissing.

you reached up to touch his face – that pretty face you once hated the sight of, but then couldn't get enough of. you pulled back only for a moment, only to connect again, neither letting the other go. your kisses were unhurried, soft, and loving, despite months upon months of pining, despite the years of pent up hate that was, at the end of day, sort of bound to blossom into love.

at the end of your seventh year, when you were leaving hogwarts hand in hand, mcgonagall stopped you on the way out. it was only then that she told you what had actually happened that gloomy day october, the one that practically sealed your fates for eternity. the overflow of different emotions was too strong for you to have time to act shocked, and you pulled the woman into a big hug, thanking her with teary eyes. for putting up with you for so many years, and for managing to do the unimaginable.

[sweemmy]

The noise is deafening, a symphony of bodies pushing against each other, broken laughter, and distorted music blending with the distant hum of the city. It’s a wall of sound, chaotic and unpredictable, twisting through the night air like a living thing. The flashing lights dance across faces, reflecting in eyes, distorting the reality around them, making it impossible to distinguish where the noise ends and the chaos begins.

The crowd pulses like an organic thing, a storm of people feeding off each other’s energy, a heat that presses down on everything. There’s an underlying tension in the air, an energy ready to crack—ready to break. But amidst the thrumming chaos, there is you. And that's why Vi can’t look away.

Your movements don’t belong to this mess. They are fluid, separate—like you’re dancing to a rhythm all your own, far removed from the frantic pace of the world around you. There’s a wildness in the way you move, a seductive grace, like you belong to the night itself. With every step, you command the space around you, weaving through the crowd with a kind of effortless authority, as though the noise, the shoves, the murmurs can't touch you.

Everyone else feels like a shadow. They blur, become nothing more than silhouettes lost in the chaos. But you… you stand out in a way that pulls Vi in like gravity, impossible to ignore.

Every time her eyes lock on you, it’s like something inside her stirs, a spark that ignites into a flame she can’t extinguish. It burns brighter with each passing moment, no matter how hard she tries to turn it off. The haze of alcohol, the smoke curling up into the night, the lights that flash and shift in every color across the skin of the partygoers—it all fades away when she meets your gaze. In that instant, the world shrinks to just you and her.

Vi doesn’t dare to move yet, but she knows she will. Every step she takes toward you feels like it’s already been decided, like it’s the only thing she could possibly do. How many bodies separate you now? It doesn’t matter. She could push through them all if she had to—nothing else matters except getting closer to you.

She doesn’t just watch you. She feels you. Every subtle shift of your posture, the tilt of your head, the brief flicker of your eyes toward her—it’s all an invitation. A pull. A magnetism that threatens to consume her. You don’t even have to speak, and still, your gaze burns through her, stripping away any pretenses, leaving only the raw pulse of desire. She feels it in the air around her, thick and electric—a longing so intense, so real, it consumes everything. It’s a silent battle between the impulse to give in and the voice in her head telling her to hold back.

Vi takes another small step. Just one. But with the shift of her weight, the noise of the party seems to quiet, the lights dimmed in the space between you, and suddenly, everything is just… you. Her heartbeat quickens, and the space between you is so small that the rest of the world—sweat-slicked bodies, the thumping bass of music, the sticky heat—disappears. The world narrows to just the heat of your body, the proximity of your lips, and the breathless need to be closer.

Will she do it?

Vi pauses. It’s like the world presses pause for just a fraction of a second, and in that moment, she hesitates. A final thread of doubt dances through her mind. But then, she exhales, and all of that doubt vanishes like smoke in the night. She feels it—an inevitability. A hunger. And it all sharpens into one simple truth: there’s no reason to wait. No reason to stay lost in the noise unless it’s with you. Unless it’s now.

And before her mind can catch up, before she can second-guess herself, she’s moving. Fast, like the beat of her heart, no hesitation, no pause. She pushes through the bodies, a blur of motion, until the world around her fades completely.

Vi’s breath hitches, her lips brushing yours with a hunger she’s been fighting to keep down. The kiss is frantic, a reflection of the city around them—chaotic, desperate, but alive with intensity. It’s wild, it’s urgent, but under all the noise, there’s something deep. Something that goes far beyond the heat of the moment. It’s the unspoken promise of something more.

And in that kiss, the world is gone. There is nothing but you. And her. And the frantic rhythm of everything they’ve just started.

[seresinhangmanjake]

The One I Want: Part 5

Jake "Hangman" Seresin x plus size!reader

Summary: You’re new in town and some guy named Jake is about to be your roommate. Being skeptical of new people keeps you lonely and uninterested in any entanglements, but Jake is desperate to change that.

Notes/Warnings: Bradley Bradshaw x OC!reader, cursing, maybe. Self-doubt and insecurities.

Words: 3165

The One I Want Masterlist

---

You are stirred by a knock at your door and you flip over in bed, eyes widening when you find the sun too high in the sky for the hour you were expected to wake. 

“Shit! I’m gonna be late.” 

Throwing back the covers you hop out of the warmth of your mattress into the chill of the room, and rush toward the bathroom. But there’s another knock. Glancing between the door and the bathroom, you debate which is more important, but you know Jake is on the other side. And you know he won’t stop. So, quickly as you can, you make your way to the opposite side of the room and yank the door open. 

“Hey,” Jake says with a smile. “I was, uh…I–”

Your brow raises in question, but then you realize where the two-second glance of his eyes landed before they returned to your face. The speedy transition from comfy bed to cold air caused your nipples to bud and press through the thin fabric of your tight tank top. 

Crossing your arms over your chest, and ignoring the blush you can’t will away, you say, “What’s up?”

“You weren’t up for work, so I thought you might be sick or something.”

“Nope, not sick,” you reply, stepping back to ease the door closed. You really need to get ready. You’re already calculating how long each of your morning routine tasks will take if you operate at max speed. 

“Wait,” Jake says, his palm flattening against the door. It’s not forceful, you could slam it closed if you really wanted to, but the look on Jake’s face makes you pause for him. “When I pick you up, any chance you want to go to a bonfire? Just friends from work and a couple of locals. It’s not going to be anything crazy.”

“Yea, sure,” you rush out, not soaking in his words. You’re going to be late, he’s going to be late, and you need to get rid of him. 

Jake smiles again as he says, “Really?” and you nod, not entirely sure what you’ve agreed to. But it works to move him along. 

He wishes you a good day and begins to head for the front door when, suddenly, he pauses halfway on his path. You think he’s about to ask you something else that you won’t comprehend with the anxiety of being late to work consuming your thoughts, but he simply stands there with his back to you, blows out a breath, and rests one hand on his hip while the other runs through his hair.

“Calm the fuck down,” you hear him mutter before he collects himself and resumes his move toward the door and out of the apartment. 

Thankful that he’s finally gone, you shower as fast as humanly possible, dress, and run into the kitchen to grab a water bottle to shove into your bag and the first piece of food you can find, a banana, to devour before you leave. At this rate, you’ll only be fifteen minutes late, but considering you’ve not once been tardy in the week and a half you’ve worked at the shop, you hope the owner will go easy on you. No one buys souvenirs at nine a.m. on a Friday, anyway. Hopefully. 

But fifteen minutes late turns into twenty. 

With the last bite of banana chewed, you toss the peel into the garbage can, but before the automatic lid fully closes, you catch a glimpse of an all too familiar item with all too familiar writing. Your foot presses on the pedal to shoot the lid back open. Reaching inside, you smack the banana peel out of the way and wrap your hand around the mug. 

My Girlfriend F*cks a Naval Aviator. You know those words. You know this mug. You sold this mug, to a busty blonde with an attitude problem. 

Though Jake’s been gone for more than ten minutes, your line of vision meets the front door to the apartment as if he had shut it behind him only moments ago. 

—

Jake’s hand casually rests on top of the steering wheel, guiding his truck steadily with the heel of his palm, and you wonder if he’s handled everything in his life with such ease; if he’s faced a single hardship or if a beautiful fate shined down upon him from the very beginning. 

From the moment you met Jake, you could tell he’d grown up well. He walks with the confidence of a man who has years of praise straightening his spine and holding his shoulders back. He speaks without the fear of being scolded, though being in the military, you’re positive he’s been barked at enough for a lifetime. He’s smart and clean and put together as if there was never the possibility for him to be anything else. And here you are, not remembering the last time you weren’t tense walking out your front door. 

“I’m really glad you’re coming with me,” Jake says. 

It jolts you out of your thoughts. 

Jake hadn’t given you much of an explanation for how the night would unfold, and you were too embarrassed to ask, having not really listened to him that morning when he was asking you to join him. In fact, you’d forgotten your commitment to any activity after your shift until he showed up at the gift shop to pick you up with your sweater draped over the passenger seat claiming it gets a little chilly at night.

“It’s no problem,” you say in response, knowing that this event could absolutely be a problem. 

You don’t know these people well. You don’t know this location. You don’t know how to handle being around Jake for an entire night after finding that mug in the trash and feeling the tiniest of pangs in your chest. You don’t want to think about the woman who bought it, what she meant, or possibly still means, to him. 

Jake puts the truck in park and turns to you with a grin that brightens his eyes even in the dim light of the nearby street lamp. “Ready?”

“Sure,” you answer, a wobble in your voice. 

He hops out of the car and hurries to your side, opening the door and reaching out to you. You stare at his hand for a beat before you decide to slip yours into his grasp so he can help you make the short leap from your seat to the sand. 

“Thanks.”

He gives you a nod, but he doesn’t release your hand as he guides you to the glowing light in the distance and the many silhouettes surrounding it. 

It feels odd when the small group smiles at you as you close the distance to the bonfire—an immediate acceptance from Jake’s friends and team. A few from the team you’d only met once, briefly, but you wouldn’t have assumed you made enough of an impression for them to be so welcoming now. 

Javy rises from one of the unfoldable chairs and rushes to you with his arms spread wide. He greets you with a “Hello Sweetness” and what you’re sure would’ve been a lung-crushing squeeze if Jake hadn’t put his free hand against his friend's chest to stop him before he could get to you. 

“Hands to yourself,” Jake warns. 

Javy’s arms slap down to his sides with the same dramaticism of his lips falling into a pout. He glances down. “You don’t keep your hands to yourself,” he whines, but there’s a subtle tease to it, a little quirk of his mouth that has your eyes going wide and your hand jerking free from Jake’s.

His eyes dart to the loss of weight between his fingers, then over to you, and you can detect the disappointment on his face despite not looking his way to confirm it. He turns back to Javy, who becomes the line leader toward the rest of the group. 

“She’s here!” Javy announces to your embarrassment, then in a dull tone says, “Jake’s here, too, but that’s less important.”

One by one, each of Jake’s friends greet you with nods and more smiles and questions of “How are you?” and “How was your day?” and you do your best to answer. You meet four others. The Bob you’ve heard plenty about who instantly gives up his seat for you; Rooster’s girlfriend, Millie—a petite red-head with a southern twang to her voice and a laugh that echoes across the waves of the ocean; and Mav and Penny, a couple that seems to operate as the parental figures of their younger friends. 

For the most part, you keep quiet as the night goes on, and from that decision, learn plenty. After two hours of experiencing them all in one place, your previous belief that these people solely operate as friends and teammates is quickly tossed away. They are family, held together by far more powerful sources than blood. Their lives are interwoven. They’re protectors of one another on land as much as they are at sea and in the sky. But it’s the teasing and story-telling, genuine pride, and support of each other that stings your nose and blurs the edges of your vision from springing tears. 

You’ve never seen people exist like this. People damage, people rip apart, and then people leave. No one sticks around to aid in healing others’ wounds—you thought. But you could pick any one of those in front of you now—electively sitting around a pit of fire with bottles of beer in their hands as they enjoy one another's company—and know that they have healed someone to their left or right. In their living, breathing unit, each person is vital for continuing on, and for whatever reason, for the time being, you’ve been invited into them.

Jake, in the midst of retelling a crowd-pleasing story, doesn’t sense you slip away to nestle in the sand. His voice fades to the waves that slide over the damp and heavy grains to touch your toes, retreat, and reliably reach for you again. One of few things that comes back, you think. The waves, and Jake you suppose. Both of which you’re finding are masters of the rebound. There is no pushing away either without preparing yourself for their return. The waves aren’t going anywhere, and with how your fingertips still tingle from Jake’s hand in yours, you’re starting to believe neither is he. 

You can’t say how much time has passed when you’re joined by another.

“He noticed, ya know,” you hear just as the little redhead plops down beside you. “That you’re not next to him.”

With knees bent, you wrap your arms around your thighs and hum, daring yourself not to glance over your shoulder. You can’t figure out what you want. For his eyes to search in the hope of meeting yours, or not. Instead, you focus on the newcomer. 

Millie is tiny, that’s for sure. She makes you feel like a city-destroying giant in this proximity, but unlike with most other women, your insecurity from being around her stops at the height difference. While there are probably a hundred differences between you, many of which can be spotted with a single look, you find comfort in one confirmed similarity: her shape. 

Her chest is heavy. She’s full in the hips and thick in the thighs, and when she’s perched on Rooster’s lap, a couple of rolls form where her tummy is. Rolls that she doesn’t care are obvious through her snug shirt. Rolls that don’t stop Rooster from running his hands over her body, fingers occasionally drifting to dangerous areas when he thinks no one else is watching. Most people aren’t watching. You are. 

Whenever a couple like them is shoved in your face, you picture loads of things that you probably shouldn’t be picturing considering this couple in particular could be in your life for a while. But you can’t help it. You picture them together, wrapped around one another, Rooster holding Millie close, sucking on her full breasts, kissing her stretch-marked skin, burying his head between thighs he would gladly permit to suffocate him. There are smiles and giggles and genuine moans of pleasure. You picture love meeting sex.

To your defense, it isn’t about Rooster or Millie. When you picture these scenarios, the people themselves lose their meaning to you, if they ever had meaning at all. They become Perfect Man and Imperfect Woman. Perfect Man who falls on his knees for Imperfect Woman. Perfect Man who worships Imperfect Woman despite her imperfections. Every duo like Rooster and Millie you’ve come across in your stopping points around the country worms their way into your daydreams. You’ve never quite had the Perfect/Imperfect couple so close, though, and as much as you try to ignore it, it plants a seed of hope.  

“He didn’t want to bother you if you wanted a second to be alone,” Millie says to your shock, because since when doesn’t Jake Seresin squeeze himself into your space uninvited? That’s shown to be one of his top ten skills. 

“Were you sent over?”

“Nope,” she replies, popping the ‘P’. “I just happen to enjoy your company. You, me, and Penny gotta stick together. We’re the only gals in this crew who don’t get to fly without a chaperone.” Her head quirks to the side. “Well, there’s Payback’s girl as well. They’re overseas for a few more months—Fanboy, too.”

Jake mentioned them. Another set of best friends whose seats at this family table could not be occupied by outsiders. 

Millie leans back on her palms, tucking her toes into the sand. “I know they can be overwhelmin’,” she says. “They’re loud—well, with the exception of Bobby—and they’re all annoyingly attractive, right?”

Especially annoying is one particular pilot. 

“I never thought in a million years a guy like Bradley would develop a thing for me.”

“How’d you meet him?” you ask Millie, who instantly grins at the memory.

“I've got an uncle in the Navy,” she says, and if you closed your eyes, her southern accent would take you right to Alabama. You didn’t do well in Alabama. But Millie is far from a representation of the population you’d found yourself within. “Came to visit for the summer, met Bradley, and that was that.”

“You never went back home?”

She lets out a laugh that almost has her rolling onto her side. “Oh no, Honey, I did,” she finally gets out. “But I gave that dope my phone number. He kept callin’ and textin’. Wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to come back.” 

Giving her an amused look at the image of that burly pilot a few yards away being so desperate, Millie giggles and pats your knee. 

“I know, what a creep. But he won me over before I left, so I was lenient,” she says. “We spent more time together, and when he asked me to be his girl and move in with him, I said yes. Actually, I got here not long before you arrived.”

You take a moment to think over what she’s shared over the course of the night. Millie is young, at least a decade separating her and her boyfriend, and, from what you understand after her earlier telling of her story for you, she had a whole life on the other side of the country. A mother, a grandmother, a brother, a father who is less than thrilled his baby girl lives with a man much older than herself. A job lined up at her family’s small business. A good country boy everyone expected her to start dating soon. Yet, it appears with no reservations, she picked up, left her family, her business, and that country boy to settle in with Rooster. 

You can’t help but question what it would take for you to pick a place and stay in it. Neither can you remember the last town you lived in for more than four months. 

“Do you like it here?” you ask.

“Oh, it's lovely. Different, absolutely. But it’s not about here,” she shakes her head. “It’s about him. I’ll go where he goes.” Turning her head, she looks back to the group and smiles. A blush spreads across her cheeks from whatever charming, flirty gesture you guarantee Rooster just directed her way. “Datin’ a pilot,” she continues, her gaze back on the ocean, “is certainly…somethin’. It’s got its challenges, for sure, but Bradley is worth it.”

You nod because, on a level, you understand. Rooster is as kind as he is good-looking, and it takes about three breaths in their presence to see that he’s head over heels in love with his girlfriend. He’s gentle with her in a way you’ve never known—sweet—and when he looks at her, you see in his eyes that he is looking at his future. His wife. The mother of his children. Whether she knows of his plans or not, it makes sense that she stays by his side. No one with their head on straight would let that go if they could get away with it. 

“Jake’s a good guy, ya know,” Millie suddenly states, her honey-toned eyes meeting the plane of your profile. “He’d be worth it, too.”

Eyes widening, your head snaps to her so fast you feel a muscle tweak in your neck. 

She smiles softly, almost motherly though she’s younger than you, then she stands and dusts the sand off the back of her cutoffs. “Just somethin’ to think about, Honey,” she says. “I’ll let him know you’re alright.”

With Millie gone, you take extra minutes to collect yourself; take your deep breaths and try to wrap your head around her words. You’re not so sure you can. They’re as hard to push aside as the words and names directed at you in the past—the reasons you abandoned the places you’ve been to end up here. But for the first time, you don’t taste that sourness on your tongue or feel the swell and ache of nausea in your gut. There’s a wiggliness to your nerves from anxiety, but they accompany an intense pounding of your heart you’ve not experienced in so long you’d almost forgotten what it’s like. 

Standing, you brush away the sand that had snuck its way into the folds of your clothes and you turn. At some point, Jake switched seats with Bradley for the one that faces the ocean, faces you, and your stare instantly meets his. 

His knee is bouncing. He gives you a smile laced with concern, but it has enough power behind it to encourage you closer. So you step forward, one foot before the other until you see the movement of a bobbing head in your peripherals. Breaking your connected stare, your eyes flick to the right of Jake’s head and onto a figure in the distance.

And much like that mug from this morning, you think you know this figure. 

---

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[amyelevenn]

All I know is that you drove us off the road

PAIRING; Oscar Piastri x driver!reader

SUMMARY; Oscar insists on taking you to the airport after a race, but faces engine problems on the way there.

WARNINGS; none really - mainly fluff! maybe a car breaking down?

A/N; I really enjoyed writing this! let me know any thoughts and feelings are always appreciated!

1.8k words masterlist

.・。.・゜✭・✧・✫・゜・。.

.・。.・゜✭・✧・✫・゜・。.

“No, please. I can make my own way to the airport, Piastri,” you laugh, giving him a shit eating grin at his implication. “I can drive, ya know.”

It was the Monday after the Melbourne Grand Prix; it wasn’t a particularly notable race for either of you, despite you both finishing in point scoring positions. It wasn’t an overly entertaining race; no flags or spectacular overtakes from anyone in particular.

“You were drunk last night, not sure you should be driving,” he grinned, mischief dancing in his eyes.

A couple drinks were consumed the night before at a local bar Oscar’s friends had told you about. It wasn’t much, not overly busy on a random Sunday night in March. It allowed for some kind of anonymity, something that was quickly becoming a foreign concept to you.

You shove his shoulder, giggling as you feign anger. “I had two drinks! In what world does that classify as being drunk?”

Oscar rolls his eyes, shaking his head with a happy chuff. “Please, come to the airport with me. I’m going that way anyway!”

It’s hard not to deadpan at him; you may not have been a local, but you knew well enough that the Melbourne Airport wasn’t exactly near anything else. It was well over an hour from the city, where he was claiming to be headed.

“Osc, just accept the no,” you half beg, beginning to roll your suitcase away from him and towards where your team were gathered. You almost manage to take two steps before his hand wraps around your arm, pulling you back in his direction.

He had miscalculated how close you would end up being to him – you were mere inches away from his face, bodies all but pressed against each other.

“I insist. Let me take you to the airport, love,” he mutters, with an air of intimacy that came with the proximity.

You hadn’t realised you were holding your breath in anticipation until your body forced you to sigh. Finally, you give in to his insistence, silently nodding in acceptance. He takes a second, closely examining your face, before moving in the direction of his car. your face heats up ever so slightly, the butterflies fluttering in your stomach not something you were wanting to experience.

You are just friends, a little voice screams in the back of your mind. But the way he looks at you makes you wonder – what if there could be something more?

You were quick with your goodbyes to your team, informing them Oscar had pestered your walls down enough to convince you to ride with him. You comically exaggerate it as much as you can, making him into some sort of creepy guy who doesn’t leave you alone until you finally agree to go out with him. They all laugh, hard, which confuses you until a hand taps on your shoulder, revealing the man himself standing awkwardly behind you.

You excuse yourself from the group, laughter echoing behind you as you and Oscar walk away, his teasing grin matching your own.

“You really think I’m some annoying loser?” he teases, bumping his elbow into yours as you enter the hotel carpark. You barely even notice his hand resting softly on the small of your back as he guides you towards his car.

“Ha ha,” you sarcastically laugh, purposely losing all tone from your voice. He shakes his head as he silently giggles to himself, opening the passenger door for you. You thank him faintly, making a mental note of his little actions that have really established him at the respectful, gentlemanly one on the grid; and rightfully so.

Getting in himself, he revs the engine before pulling away from the crowded midday carpark. A soft silence envelops you, punctuated only by the gentle hum of the radio. It wasn’t uncomfortable, nor foreign, sitting in the quiet of each other’s presence. In fact, the tranquillity was a welcomed constant in your ever busy careers.

You had known Oscar for a couple years now, and he was one of the few drivers who actively went out of his way to maintain a positive relationship off the track, despite your lives depending on besting the other ever odd weekend.

As the car navigated the city’s complex grid, the beauty of Albert Park in autumn faded from view, leaving you in awe of the towering Melbournian metropolis—a testament to human ingenuity that always amazed you.

“You drove really well yesterday,” he gives, not necessarily trying to fill the comfortable silence.

“Thank you, Osc. It was certainly better than the crash I had in Bahrain!” you laugh, beginning to find it increasingly hard to ignore his constant glances over to you. “You drove a great race too! That overtake of Leclerc was really quite something.”

He sighs, dismissing the comment as if it meant nothing. He tried so hard to act nonchalant on the surface, but internally? He adored hearing any praise you had for him, even if it wasn’t directly from you, but instead Lando or the PR manager telling him you said ‘Osc is so beyond talented!’

It didn’t take much for you to compliment him, which was the best part; he was always doing something amazing that prompted telling him just how good he was, or how lucky he had gotten that day, or how cool his special livery looked.

Even it was miniscule, you always had a comment for him that would make his day.

You hadn’t even noticed the car slowing to a stop, pulling over on the side of some random suburban road until you were at a full stop, the engine beginning to smoke under the hood.

“Oscar what the hell have you done…” you raised an eyebrow, stifling a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

“Uh, I’m not sure but I reckon we should maybe get out of the car,” he stutters, pushing himself out of his side before opening the hood to assess the severity of the situation.

You shook your head in disbelief, a chuckle escaping your lips at the absurdity of your situation. Here you are, stuck on the side of the road, while a Formula 1 driver fumbles under the hood. Talk about irony.

It was difficult, watching him rattle around underneath the hood when he clearly had no expertise here and not laugh your ass off. “This feels like…some sort of karma for forcing me to ride with you. I thought you knew how to drive?” you finally laugh, the ludicrosity of it all hitting you like a brick wall.

You couldn’t help but chuckle as you watched him struggle – maybe he needed more than a racing licence to handle car troubles.

“Hey, i didn’t twist your arm to get in, love,” he huffs. “And I am an amazing driver, thank you so very much.” He tries to stifle the smile breaking out on his face, but you notice it before it got hidden away.

Before you are able to retaliate, a middle-aged couple emerges from the house you had broken down in front of.

“You fellas alright?” the man asks, pushing the gate outwards so they have a better vantage point over the smoking vehicle.

“We are so sorry, are we in the way?” you ask, putting on a sympathetic show that you had become so used to having for the fans. “We were just about to call for help, they shouldn’t take too long to get here.”

“Nah mate, they’ll take foreva to get ‘ere and cost ya an arm an’ a leg. Let me help youse,” he offers, but doesn’t allow you the option as he waddles over to where Oscar is still hunched over.

The woman moves to stand next to you, introducing herself, Kristyn, and her husband, Mitch. You give yours in return, to which she compliments you on your name. “’ve never met one before,” she muses, repeating your name gently under her breath to herself.

You smile softly, making light small talk as Mitch explains to Oscar what is at fault with the engine.

“You two seem like a gorgeous couple. How long’ve you been datin’?” she asks, not noticing the caught-off-guard expression you have on your face.

You feel heat rush to your cheeks as she compliments you, your heart racing at the unexpected attention. It almost bugs you more than you would have anticipated, a sense of embarrassment creeping along your flushed skin.

You ponder telling her the truth, that you aren’t together, but figure it would be easier to go along with it, for her and your sake.

“Almost a year now, yeah,” you smile, feigning a sense of admiration for your ‘boyfriend.’

“Aw, bless your sweet young hearts,” she hums, gently patting your shoulder as if to say you had her approval. It was weird, but it felt nice to have her endorsement of a relationship that wasn’t even real. Maybe you wanted more with Oscar?

You nod along, answering any and all of her follow up questions about him, like how you met, how he asked you out, if marriage was on the table. You almost enjoyed making up a whole story for her, weaving this intricate narrative for her to invest herself in. the pair of you had gotten so caught up in each other that you hadn’t noticed the car being put back together, Mitch reviving the engine in approval of a job well done.

“Well, at least he isn’t the only one who can’t handle car troubles!” you muse, laughing with Kristyn as the boys make their way over to you.

Mitch wraps a lose arm around his wife, and you follow his lead as you intertwine your own around Oscars waist, to which he accepts with no questions.

“Thank you so much for your troubles,” he murmurs. “Can i give you some money or something? It’s the least we could do.”

The couple scoff in sync, laughing at the idea of being paid for merely helping out a stranger. “Nah, we don’t want your dough mate. Just don’t blow the car up, that’ll be enough.”

“Are you sure? Please, let us compensate you in some way, as a thank you,” you suggest.

“Maybe you should drive instead of him, aye?” Kristyn laughs, breaking the four of you into a fit of giggles. You nod in agreement, to which Oscar immediately shoots down with the reason of it’s his car.

“Well, thank you again for your help. We really appreciate it.” Oscar squeezes your shoulders, then releases you as he walks over to the passenger side to open it for you. It wasn’t until then that you realised how much you had been leaning into his side, missing the warmth of him almost immediately. You say your goodbyes, telling them it was really nice to meet them, and one final thank you for their kindness.

As you drive on, laughter spilling between you, you can’t help but think maybe this unexpected detour was just what you needed to explore what’s brewing beneath the surface.

.・。.・゜✭・✧・✫・゜・。.

as always, feedback is appreciated!

[georgeclarkesgf]

hey!! i love the way you write for george it’s so cute - could i request something where the reader is good friends with max and they’re all at a social event and george meets her for the first time and he gets a huge crush on her (maybe some teasing from his housemates) and then maybe a bit about how the relationship develops

all good if not!!! ty ❤️❤️

of course lovely! here you go <3

by the time you and max arrive at george's housewarming party, the sounds of laughter and music filling the air are in full swing. max can sense your nerves, and reassures you quickly with a side hug before dragging you to get a drink.

it was only your first week in london, having recently just moved, after much convincing from max. you'd been close friends with him for years. he knows how nervous you were about making such a big move, so when george mentioned the party, max knew this was the perfect opportunity to introduce you to everyone and make you feel more welcome.

after being handed a drink, you're pulled over to where george and grace are currently bickering about a tiktok they saw. grace is the first to spot you both, getting up and giving max a hug before introducing herself.

"hi babe! you must be y/n," you nod, returning her hug, "max mentioned he was bringing someone. you want a drink?"

"uh, no i've just got one but thank you. let me know when you get another one and i'll join you though." you smile before she walks off.

"probably for the best, grace can't measure drinks for shit. i'm george by the way."

"i know," internally you cringe, not wanting to make yourself sound like a weird fan or stalker, "i mean because i watch the podcast, and max loves to talk about you."

max's jaw drops, and he playfully shoves your shoulder, "i do not!"

"yes, you do. don't lie."

as the night goes on and you gain confidence through the drinks you consume, you find yourself gravitating toward george. you'd been introduced to everyone, him having taken over from max at some point in the evening, wanting to spend as much time with you as possible despite only just meeting you.

chris and arthur, george's flatmates, notice the way his eyes follow you whenever you're talking to someone else or grabbing a drink, and decide to tease him.

"george," he gives a hum of acknowledgment, but his eyes never leave you, "you're staring."

"chris shut up. i'm not staring." he mumbles, quickly shifting his gaze to the phone in his hand.

it's a lie, of course he's staring. how could he not?

"so, you have a plan? or are you just gonna stare all night and hope that she'll magically become your girlfriend?" arthur teases making george roll his eyes.

ignoring the laughs from behind him, he walks over to where you and grace are and rests a hand on your lower back to gain your attention.

"hey, sorry to interrupt. can i steal you for a minute?"

"yea of course." you say, taking his hand as he leads you to somewhere more private.

his hands grow clammy as he closes his bedroom door and you notice how he won't meet your eye for longer than a couple of seconds at a time.

"george, are you okay?"

he shoves his hands in his pockets and finally meets your gaze, taking a deep breath to calm his nerves.

"sorry if this is too forward and i know we've just met but i was wondering if you'd wanna grab a drink some time? no pressure to say yes or anything."

the few seconds of silence are killing him before you nod your head with a grin on your face.

"i'd love to." you giggle and pull out your phone to get his number.

--------

the next few weeks you and george are barely apart, spending nearly every day together. his friends don't stop their teasing but he doesn't let it bother him. he's just happy with how well things are going.

the date had gone well, a local bar allowing you to get to know each other more in a relaxed environment. conversation between you both flowed easily, filling the space with laughter as you found out more about each other. it was evident by the end of the date that the feelings were mutual.

weeks turn into months, and everyone around you is glad you're both so happy and smitten with one another. george is constantly proving to be an incredible boyfriend, making sure you feel loved and appreciated, surprising you with random gifts or nights away.

one night, you're at george's flat for the weekly movie night that now happens. his arm is wrapped around your waist and you're curled into him, head on his shoulder.

"have we ever told you how thankful we are you adopted george as your rescue boyfriend?" arthur chuckles and george groans at the reminder of the infamous tweet, "means his whole personality can't be about being single."

"yea you've mentioned it once or twice," you laugh as george hides his face in your neck, blushing, "don't get embarrassed baby, you're my favourite rescue boyfriend."

his head shoots up and he cocks his eyebrow, "what do you mean your favourite? what other rescue boyfriends have you had?"

"never you mind, just watch the movie."

you push his head towards the tv but before you realise what's happening, george is mercilessly tickling you. a shriek of laughter escapes your lips.

"george! stop, i'm sorry!" you gasp, trying to pry his wrists away from your sides, but you're trapped underneath him.

watching the scene unfold in front of them, chris and arthur smile, feeling happy for george at him being so undoubtedly in love.

"okay, okay! i surrender! please stop!" your sides physically hurt from your uncontrollable laughing.

at last, george stops, gripping your hips instead and you're panting as you try to catch your breath.

"tell me i'm not a rescue boyfriend and that i'm actually the best boyfriend in the world." he demands, his voice a mix of mock sternness and affection.

"you're not a rescue boyfriend, you're actually the best boyfriend in the world. i love you." he dips his head, placing a kiss on your lips before you both sit up.

"i love you too." george repeats, letting you cuddle into his side again.

in your tickle fight, you both momentarily forget where you are until you hear arthur speak, "you two are so cute."

a look is shared between you and you both know there's nowhere else you'd rather be than in this moment.

[bangtaninborderland]

MYG- I love you eternally.

Summary: he hasn't been gone long but the space he left behind consumes you, thankfully you aren't ever really alone.

Genre: hurt/comfort, angst, sad fic, happy ending, COMFORT

A/N: this came to me after seeing an edit on tiktok of yoongi clips to fine line by harry styles (deffo listen as you read it makes you cry) this is very self indulgent. I miss yoongi an awful lot, he was my comfort person and it sucks that I can’t stop crying.

BTS Masterlist

The sound of knuckles tapping on the door pulled you out of your trance, you hadn’t even realised the movie you’d put on had finished, nor that your phone had been receiving numerous calls for the past god knows how long.

Reluctantly you shove off the blanket you had wrapped around you, it was a gift from Yoongi one winter when it was far too cold to sit in just clothing. The door is only a few steps away from the couch so it doesn’t take you long to finally open it.

“I brought foo-“Namjoon's mouth rounds into an ‘o’ shape. “You were crying.”

“Was I?” You frown reaching up to touch your face, sure enough, it was damp from the tears you’d shed. “Sorry, I was just a little out of it.”

“Let’s go inside?” He asks, raising the white bag up a little higher to remind you of the food he brought.

“Oh yeah, of course.” You shake your head stepping aside to let him pass. “I’m not really hungry.”

“Have you eaten today?” He asks, pulling out some plates.

You slump back onto the couch, pulling the blanket around you before shoving your face into the hood of the sweatshirt you’d stolen from Yoongis's closet. The smell comforts you. “I don’t know, I had breakfast or was it lunch…” you trail off, half-heartedly trying to recount your day.

“You can’t let yourself fall apart YN. Hyung will be worried.” He looks at you with a hint of concert as he passes you a plate of food. “Let’s watch something?”

“I- uh.” You really can’t stand the idea of noise right now. “Maybe not tonight?”

“Of course. What did you do today?” He questions, sitting on the other end of the couch, his own plate balanced on his thighs.

“Not much, I watched TV and read a chapter of the book yoon gave me.” You dug the spoon into the food, not really attempting to eat.

It wasn’t your fault you had no appetite.

“Was the book good?” He asked in between a mouthful.

“It… I don’t really know… I couldn’t get into it.” You shrug, bringing the spoon to your mouth.

“It’s 5 pm and you haven’t done anything today have you?” Namjoon sets his plate aside in favour of moving closer to you.

“I miss him.” You mumble, putting your own plate on the table.

Yoongi would have scolded you if he were here, always complaining that it would mark the table despite the fact you always used hear absorbent dinner trays but that was the problem…

Yoongi wasn’t here.

You don’t know what exactly caused it but within a second you were bursting into tears, everything you’d managed to hold together ever since he left a week ago falling apart. “I miss him, I don’t even get to fucking call him.”

“I know.” Namjoon shushes you as he brings your head to his shoulder in an attempt to comfort you. “I’m so sorry this must be hard for you.”

“It was so short notice he didn’t even tell m-me.” You hiccuped, bordering between the lines of angry and sad was never a good place to be but you couldn’t help it.

Yoongi had waited until the last possible moment to tell you he had received his enlistment date and when he had received it he was shocked to see a date only 4 days away giving you absolutely no time to mentally prepare yourself for him to be gone.

“It’s so fucking unfair.” You cuss, unable to do anything else with your anger at the situation.

Namjoon didn’t say anything, he couldn’t, he himself knew how ridiculously unfair it was but still, he didn’t regret the group's choice, it was the only right way to deal with the situation. “It will pass quicker than you think. You won’t be alone.”

“Joon soon enough you, Tae, Jimin and Jungkook are enlisting too. It’s not exactly like anyone else knows about me and Yoongi. Other people just don’t understand it.” Yoongi had made a joke two days before he left telling you to cry with other armys about it because they would understand but it was looking more and more appealing as the days went past. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”

Another wave of tears came just seconds later and this time there was no reprieve, anytime you nearly stopped a memory of him would pop into your mind and the tears would start again. You hated how it made you seem crazy, seem overly obsessive but you knew Yoongi would be missing you just as much. You’d become each other strength in all the years you’d been together so now he wasn’t here, wasn’t just a phone call away, it felt like you’d lost a part of yourself, it felt like you’d lost your strength.

That’s how you fell asleep, curled in Namjoon's arms, sobbing in longing for the man who taught you how to love.

Namjoon waited until he was sure you were fast asleep before slipping out from underneath you, draping the gifted blanket over you as he tiptoed to the balcony to take his incoming call.

“Hyung.” Namjoon smiles into the phone. “How are you?”

“As good as I can be, you didn’t tell her right?”

“No Hyung. Are you sure we really can’t tell her about you-“

“No Namjoon-ah I don’t want to get her hopes up, that will only hurt her more if it doesn’t get approved. I’ll tell her if she knows I can call and I don’t want to do that to her. How is she? How are you? ”

“I’m okay.” Namjoon responds. “She misses you.” He continues, not going u into depth about the small breakdown.

“I miss her too.” He breathes, his voice a little strained in the way it gets when he is very obviously holding back tears. “Is she eating?”

Namjoon nodded before realising Yoongi couldn’t see him. “I brought her food she just seemed sad. Are you eating Hyung? Sleeping enough?”

Yoongi laughs as though Namjoon has said something absurd. “The food is shit. I’ve got this fucking melody stuck in my head and I just know it would sound amazing for the vocal line.”

“Ah, Hyung.” Namjoon laughs. “I’ll tell them I’m sure they would appreciate the fact you’re thinking about making their songs already.”

“I’ll probably forget it by the time I’m actually allowed to work on music.” Yoongi huffs.

“I doubt it.” Namjoon hears shuffling, already knowing it’s you. “I have to go Hyung she’s waking up.”

“Make sure she knows I love her okay? I’ll call you again to let you know if it’s approved.” Yoongi rushes out before Namjoon hangs up.

“What are you doing?” You ask him, shivering at the draft coming from the open door.

“Sorry.” He smiles, stepping back inside and closing it behind him. “Just needed some air. So… how about watching something?”

You don’t hate the idea as much as you did earlier, your little thirty-minute nap helping you feel a little better. “Sure.”

You watch 3 episodes of some drama before declaring it a night, Namjoon insisting you eat before he left which led to you both eating an oversized pizza. It leaves you feeling a little less lonely, especially when he tells you just how much he too misses Yoongi.

Namjoon comes over again three more times that week, each day following the same pattern. The days he didn’t come you resigned yourself to laying in bed, looking through pictures and videos you and Yoongi had taken in the past few months.

Today was one of those days, those days where you missed him so much and felt so alone that you’d texted Namjoon not to come, told him you just couldn’t deal with being around anyone else right now, so it surprised you when the doorbell rang consistently for five minutes until you finally gave in.

You groaned, shivering as the floor felt cold against your bare feet. “Namjoon I said not to-

“You really shouldn’t lay in bed every day.”

You froze, too afraid to move, speak or blink in case the figure in front of you disappeared.

“Baby.” He sighed, dropping his bag inside the door before pushing you inside lightly. “It’s me.”

“Fuck.” You sobbed, wrapping your arms around him as tight as you could. “You’re here. How are you here.”

He laughed, the sound of it melodic to your ears. “I did extra time so my training finished earlier. They could t exactly say no.”

“I just- I can’t believe you’re here I thought it would be at least another three weeks before I could even call you.” You bring your hands up to his hair, despite it being short you still love it. “I missed you.”

“Baby don’t cry I’m here now.” He sucked in a breath, his own eyes pooling with tears. “I get to stay for four days.”

“Really?” You pull back to look at him properly, a grin breaking out as he nods.

“Really.”

Despite the tears trailing down your lips he leans in to kiss you, his hand at the small of your back a comforting presence. “I love you.”

“I love you too Yoon.”

The next four days passed much faster than you would have liked but as you dropped him off at the camp again things felt different.

You hated how quiet the house was without him, where he would normally be playing piano, watching a new show jimin had recommended or cooking with a glass of whiskey in his hand, there was nothing but silence.

You were almost ready to give in to your tears again until you spotted a letter on the kitchen counter.

The perfect writing on the envelope already tells you who it’s from, you don’t hesitate in pulling out the paper and reading it.

Hello, my love,

I snuck away to write this whilst you slept, I’m not the best with words although I’m sure by now you’re absolutely aware of that but still there are only things that can be conveyed by words. If I was allowed to I’d write you a hundred songs but I’m a little short on time so I hope this suffices.

I want you to know just how much you mean to me, just how much your presence has brought me happiness, strength and comfort. You often thank me for giving you strength but you forget that you are the sole reason I keep going.

You cannot let the bad days consume you, although it’s okay to give up and take a break, you can’t let that feeling consume you. There is always a tomorrow, always another chance and I know that you will never ever fail because I don’t believe in failure, every attempt is precious, and every time you try to get up - even if it isn’t successful - is precious and I am so proud of you for it.

In the moments you miss me do something nice for yourself, eat a good meal, read a book you like, watch a movie you find brings you happiness and before you realise it I’ll be back, spending every moment possible with you because you are my home.

I will always be here, write me letters, send me messages, take pictures of the things you see and do and share them with me. I’ll always be apart of your life, I’m not going anywhere.

I love you eternally.

You wiped away your tears, holding the letter close as though it were him. You let the words sink in and silently you made a promise.

You’d keep going and do the best you could, you’ll be the best version of yourself when he returns because he gave you the ability to grow much like water does a flower.

And even if you couldn’t say it to him, you were sure he knew…

You loved him eternally too.

[sweetyluvs]

𝐟𝐮𝐜𝐤 𝐢𝐭, 𝐢 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮

summary: jealousy is a nasty disease, especially when it’s ally is miscommunication.

warnings: drinking, swearing, mentions of sexual activity

a/n: was feeling a little bit mixed so… <3

the once sweet drink in Ellie’s hand has become unbearably bitter to the touch of her tongue.

all joy from the fun atmosphere of the party evaporated like ice under heat. her green eyes were following your every movement, brows furrowed agitatedly. you were smiling at a boy, laughing at whatever lame joke he had cracked. The grin on your face was wide, allowing him to lean closer and closer with you by every passing second.

“you okay there, Ellie?” Joel comments, following her deadly glaze to you. She flickered her eyes quickly away, sitting up in her chair and facing him.

“yeah, i’m fine.” she mumbled, taking a sip from her drink.

Joel didn’t say anything else, only leaning on the bar she sat at and sending her a knowing side glance.

Ellie fought the urge to look back to you when she heard the lovely sound of your laughter, and she could only imagine the grin on your face. something about the fact she wasn’t the one making you laugh like that made a spark of something bad burn in her chest.

her jaw clenched upon hearing you gasp, and let her urges consume her as she looked to you.

The man was leaning against you, whispering something in your ear when you playfully pushed him off, a big, happy grin painted your face when you said something she couldn’t decipher in return.

She only looks back to Joel when Maria calls his name, earning both her and said man to look. He sent her a nod before departing, smiling when his brother greeted him.

her green eyes looked to her drink, swaying it as pieces of her auburn hair filled her peripheral vision.

Ellie kept trying to deny the feeling that devoured her insides. the gut-wrenching, nauseating, body heating feeling of jealousy. It ate her alive.

She would never admit to it, not ever.

Her eyes trailed back to you again; wishing she was the one beside you, wanting to be the one making you laugh— needing to be the one so close.

your eyes looked up and locked with hers, the feeling that was life threatening consuming you both.

Your smile grew impossibly bigger, quickly excusing yourself from the boy you were speaking with and walking to ellie.

Your hair was up, neck and collar bones showing attractively, your shirt was unbuckled just enough to show a little more than wanted skin. Ellie snapped her eyes away from anywhere below your eyes, no smile on her face even after you got so close she could smell you.

“Hey, els. why are you here alone? where’s jesse and dina?” you question, brows furrowing in the way she loved too much.

“i dunno.” she responded dully, sipping her drink and looking away from you.

your lips shaped into a frown, bottom lip sticking out.

“Are you okay?”

“yeah. I’m great.” she says sarcastically, rolling her eyes and slamming her jar down, pushing her chair out and grabbing her coat.

“ellie, where are you going?” you hurry after, pushing through the crowd of people in a desperate attempt to follow her. she shuffles her jacket on, brutally shoving people out of her way and successfully making it to the door— with you close behind.

The cold night hair blows into Ellie’s face, her hair flying up before falling out of place. She tried to ignore your voice, calling out to her from not too far away.

“wait up! why are you leaving already?” you pant once you finally reach her, blowing warm air into the palms of your hands to try and remain comfortable.

She didn’t reply, stuffing her hands in her pockets as you two walk side by side.

“ellie?”

“ugh— what? what do you want?” she snapped, stopping dead in her tracks.

“I just asked you, like, three times. why are you leaving?”

“Probably because I want to? it was a shit party, anyways.” she replied, eyes scanning you shortly before darting away. “You could’ve come to where I was. we were having fun, you would’ve liked it.” you remarked, crossing your arms.

She scoffed, rolling her eyes for the second time tonight. “and interrupt your little.. love affair? No thanks.”

your eyes widened at her comment, brows furrowing confusedly.

“what are you taking about?”

“you think I didn’t see the way you were looking at that guy?” she retorted, voice raising. “i’m not an idiot.”

“it wasn’t like that! he’s just my—”

“let me guess, your ‘friend’?”

“Yes! he is, I swear.” your voice sounded pleading, as if you needed her to believe you.

Ellie brushed you off when she began walking again, leaving you to follow after her a second time.

“Ellie! why are you so upset? he’s only my friend, I was just having a good time. is that not allowed anymore or something?” You grabbed her arm, making her stop just before she ripped it away from your grasp.

“God— you’re so annoying! just.. go back to the party and leave me alone.” she exclaimed, regretting it immediately upon seeing your face.

“What did I do? I’m not leaving until I can properly apologize,” you insisted, raising your own voice. “here’s what you did; you stared at that guy like you wanted to fuck him!” She shouted, watching as you flinched.

your mouth fell open, eyes widening as you stare up at her. “what? fuck Matt? Ellie, He’s gay!” you yelled angrily, exasperated by her ridiculous attitude. The widen of her green eyes told you just how little she knew.

“I.. I told you that. were you not even listening?” you whispered, licking your lips.

“and why the hell are you so upset, anyways? I can fuck whoever I want and it shouldn’t bother you, it’s none of your business.”

Your words seemed to make her more upset, her face flushing with anger.

“Whatever! You’re right! go fuck some 50 year old for all I care!”

You groaned loudly, slapping your hands over your face. “Don’t say that! Why would you say that! Why is everything I do such a problem for you, ellie? i thought we were friends, we’re supposed to be with each other, not against each other. what’s up with you?” uncovering your face, your eyes met her’s—and her expression was unreadable.

It was unlike any you’ve ever seen. It had so many words, so many emotions you didn’t know where to begin.

“..ellie..?”

her jaw clenched, eyes flickering down to your lips before she let out an angry sigh.

“fuck it— I love you, Okay? I’m— fucking in love with you.”

your jaw almost met the floor, cheeks heating up instantly. Your eyes were wide, and ellie was obviously embarrassed.

“You’re… in love with me?” you voiced aloud, eyes looking to the floor.

Ellie knew she shouldn’t have said it. Now not only did she lose the one she loves, she also most likely lost her best friend.

“fuck— i.. I shouldn’t have said anyth—”

She was cut off by a pair of soft lips on hers. Ellie’s eyes shot wide, you were kissing her, and it wasn’t a dream.

As if on instinct, she kissed you back. Hands subconsciously clutching your waist as her lips made a song with yours. It was desperate, it was needy. You were greedy as they moved in an indescribable rhythm, matching perfectly like puzzle pieces. You wrapped your arms around her neck, holding tightly.

ellie felt you push harder against her, so close she could feel your every curve.

she moved from your waist to your hips, gripping you in a bruising grip.

Hums of pleasure escapes you the longer the kiss continued, urging ellie to continue; to keep it going.

You pulled away, though. Gasping for air desperately, meeting her eyes.

“I.. I fucking love you too, Ellie.”

[corroded-hellfire]

practically begging for a drabble in the universe as as you wish where they finally get the place to themselves and don’t have to be quiet

You say drabble, @munson-blurbs and I write over 5k words. Please enjoy this little glimpse at what happened right after part one 🥰

Warnings: smut, p in v, unprotected (wrap it up), oral, m and f receiving, older!eddie, babysitter!reader, breeding kink

Words: 5.1k

[As You Wish masterlist]

Eating outside in February in Indiana wouldn’t be your first choice, but when your last class gets out after everyone else has had time to claim indoor spots to chow down, you’re forced to eat your lunch at the picnic table that’s getting most direct sunlight. At least you’d been able to grab a nice hot bowl of soup to keep you warm. The sun comes out from behind a cloud, and you think that maybe your luck is changing when you look up and see Peter strolling over to you. 

“Not again,” you groan under your breath. 

“Hey,” Peter says as he takes the seat opposite you. His smile looks genuine enough, but you know it’s hiding the smarmy intentions beneath. 

“Hi,” you reply before shoving another spoonful of soup in your mouth. 

“Aren’t you cold sitting out here?” Peter takes his hands out of his pockets and blows his hot breath on them. 

No, I’m perfectly comfortable, you moron, you think to yourself. Peter is a nice enough guy, but ever since he started hounding you about why you wouldn’t go on a second date with him, he’d been insufferable. Why couldn’t he just let it go?

“A little,” you admit. “Couldn’t find a space inside.”

“My car is parked just over there,” Peter says, nodding his head in the direction of the parking lot to your left. “You can eat in there; I don’t mind.”

“No, thanks. I’m fine here.”

Peter sighs and tilts his head to the side as if he’s a confused puppy. “Why are you afraid to be alone with me?”

You almost choke on your latest sip of soup. “Afraid? I’m not afraid, Peter. I’m alone with you right now, aren’t I?”

Peter shrugs and it takes everything in you not to roll your eyes. 

“So, why no second date then?”

The moment the words leave his lips, you drop your spoon into your bowl with a clang and bring your hands up to rub over your face.

“Peter,” you say with a deep sigh, “we’ve been over this.”

“I just want a straight answer from you,” Peter says, as if this isn’t something you’ve already given him many times over. 

“How about a list?” you snap, unable to hold back your frustration any longer. “You talk with your mouth full. You called nursing a ‘girl major.’ You stared at the waitress’s chest the entire time she was at our table. And when the people next to us started speaking Spanish, you mumbled something about learning to ‘speak American.’ Which, Uncle Sam, isn’t even a God damn language. So,” your voice is rising and attracting the attention of other students, but you couldn't care less, “if you would kindly fuck off, maybe you can leave with your testicles intact.”

With that, you gather your food and rush off to the nearest payphone. Your fingers, still slightly numb from the cold, dial the number as though on autopilot. To your utter relief, he picks up.

“Scott’s Auto Body, this is Eddie speaking.”

It’s been two days since you two hooked up, devouring each other carnally in his bed while his wife wasn’t home, and you were left unsure about how to proceed. Yes, Eddie had confessed that he had feelings for you–feelings much deeper than the lust that had consumed you that evening. But, as with anything, there were consequences to these actions. And what if the consequence was that he no longer wanted you around? That you only served as a painful reminder of the way he broke his marriage vows?

“Yo? Anyone there?”

You clear your throat, forcing yourself to speak into the receiver. “H-Hi. It’s me.” You bite your lower lip and cringe. Me? How the hell is he supposed to know who ‘me’ is?

“Hey,” Eddie says, and you could swear there’s relief flooding his tone. “How are you?”

The concern in his voice mixed with the fact that he knew it was you simply by a stuttering greeting has you flustered and gripping the phone even tighter.

“I’m okay,” you manage. There’s a beat of silence before Eddie replies.

“Are you?”

“Do you remember that time you told me if I, uh, wanted to bail on something, or…”

“Is someone bothering you?” His tone is firm but kind and it reminds you all over again of why you fell for him.

“More annoying than anything,” you admit. 

“Is it that prick you went on a date with months ago?” 

Did you mention that recently? Or did Eddie remember that from when you told him a few weeks back?

“Unfortunately,” you say.

Eddie sighs. “Jesus, take the hint, pal.”

“Oh, he’s had more than hints,” you tell him. “He’s been given very direct answers multiple times.”

The only sound that comes from the other end is the faint banging and scraping from the garage. You lick over your cold, chapped lips as you wait for him to say something. 

“Where are you?” he finally asks.

“Having lunch on campus. It was peaceful at first.”

This time there’s no silence as Eddie quickly shoots back with, “Do you want me to come get you?”

“Only if you’re on your lunch break. I’ll even buy you something to eat,” you offer. “What are you in the mood for?”

“You.”

The answer and how he gave it so immediately has your face burning despite the bitter breeze blowing outside. You shuffle your boots on the ground and take a self-conscious glance around, as if someone could hear what he just said to you.

“Eddie,” you lightly admonish. 

“Love when you say my name.” The way he clears his throat after the admission has you wondering if he meant to say it aloud at all. It gives you butterflies either way. “Be there in twenty, pretty thing.”

Before Eddie gets there, you grab two sandwiches for you to split. To save yourself any possible embarrassment, you pretend that Eddie’s infectious grin is more for the food than it is for you. 

It’s more difficult to do this when roaming eyes accompany his smile; the chocolate hues soaking in every last millimeter of your body. “Hi,” he murmurs, reaching over to help you with your seatbelt. You don’t need any assistance, and he knows this, too, but it grants him the opportunity to brush his fingers against yours. 

“Where to?” he asks, unwrapping his sandwich from the thin plastic covering and taking a bite. The nickname ‘baby,’ is on the tip of his tongue, but he has to hold back. At least until the two of you figure out what the fuck is going on. 

“Home, please,” you say softly, tearing off a piece of your own PB&J. You silently curse yourself for getting such a childish sandwich, but considering the way Eddie’s practically inhaling his, he doesn’t appear to be bothered. 

He’s only driven a few blocks when he breaks the awkward silence, leaping right onto the back of the elephant in the room. Or car, rather. 

“So, um, about what happened on Saturday,” Eddie starts, but you quickly cut him off. 

“I know…you’re married.” You lower your head, too heavy with shame. He’s going to say that I shouldn’t babysit the boys anymore. He’s going to call it all a huge mistake. “It never should have happened.”

You feel your head move slightly as Eddie takes his forefinger and turns your chin to face him. “But it did. And I’m not mad about it.” His voice is firm, confident…it’s something you’ve never witnessed before when he’s talking to his horrible wife. 

“…you’re not?”

Eddie shakes his head with a small smile, unable to hide his amusement at your obvious surprise. “Not even close. I’m only mad that we can’t, y’know, actually be together.” His hands grip the steering wheel tighter as he says it; it can’t be a coincidence. 

But we can, you think, pressing your lips together in an effort to silence yourself, just leave her and be with me. 

Instead, you nod and mumble, “I know.” You take another small bite of the sandwich, hoping the sticky peanut butter will glue your tongue to the roof of your mouth and keep you from saying something stupid and clingy. 

Eddie looks at you with wide eyes. “Do you…do you regret it?”

It’s a loaded question. Do you regret letting Eddie Munson fuck you in his marriage bed—the one he shared with his wife—splitting you open while moaning about how good you felt? Not at all. Do you regret that it stirred up feelings that can’t be reciprocated because of his marital status? Absolutely. 

“No, I just wish…” you trail off, forgoing your original thought, lest it sound like an ultimatum. Instead, you pose a question of your own. “Saturday night, when you told me you cared about me…how did you mean that?”

He sighs, coming to a complete stop at the stop sign. Throwing the car in park, he turns to you with a look of longing and desire.

“Like this.” Eddie leans in and kisses you, tucking his upper lip under yours. His hand caresses your cheek, and he finishes it off with a soft bite to the plush of your lower lip. 

The honk of an irritated driver snaps you both from your passionate stupor, and Eddie uses his right hand to shift gears and his left to give a one-finger wave. You assume that that’s the end of the conversation until he speaks again. 

“I’ve cared about you since I saw how great you were with my kids,” he admits. “Tried to convince myself that it was just because, y’know, if something happened to you, it would affect them, but…”

“But?”

“But it was so much fuckin’ more than that.” He doesn’t have enough time to list all the ways he cares about you, the ways he dreams of loving and protecting you. “And now that I really know you, shit, I can’t imagine a world without you in it.”

Eddie stops the car again, ignoring the angered shouting of the person in the vehicle behind you as he turns on the flashers. Before you can open your mouth to ask what he’s doing, his lips are on yours again. His large hands cup your face, the callouses giving you goosebumps as they glide over the soft skin of your cheeks. The butterflies in your stomach seem to float up into your head as you feel lightheaded when the two of you separate. 

Not wanting to truly bring that wall down and let him see just how much this is affecting you, you attempt to play it cool—hide how flustered his tender kiss has you. 

“And, uh,” you say, clearing your throat before you continue, “what you said about wanting to hear the noises I make…?”

Immediately, Eddie’s eyes darken, and it ignites a fire in your otherwise cold body. He leans in towards you and his voice is low and silky as he says, “I wanted to hear every. Single. Sound.”

It’s getting more difficult by the second to restrain yourself when he makes you want to climb into his lap right then and there.

“And do you? Do you, um, still want it?”

A groan comes from deep in his throat as his eyes never leave yours. “So fucking bad, baby.”

The intense hunger his eyes hold almost has you snapping and throwing yourself at him, but you manage to hold onto that last single thread of restraint you have. Instead, you figure this would be better in a place that isn’t being invaded by the frigid air or when anyone could look in at you two since you’re still in the middle of the road.

“Is anyone at your house?”

Instead of giving you an answer, Eddie puts the truck into drive and presses down on the gas pedal so hard that you think it will fall through the floor of the car. The sudden speed has you pressed to the back of your seat, and you laugh at how impatient he is to get you back to his place. 

“Fuck, I love that laugh,” Eddie mumbles more to himself than you. 

When you get to the house, it’s so hard not to tear into one another on your way to the front door—even with the biting chill in the air. But there are neighbors and the last thing that needs to happen is someone assuming anything is going on between Eddie and the babysitter and make Brittany out to be some kind of martyr. 

As soon as the door is closed behind you though, Eddie has his chest pressed up against your back, his warmth seeping into you.

“Fuck, baby, I don’t know where to touch you first,” he growls in your ear.

“How about…here.” You reach down for his hands and bring them under your shirt. Sliding them up your tummy, you settle his palms right on your breasts. There’s a big goofy grin on Eddie’s face as he gently squeezes at the bra-covered flesh.

“Love these, sweet girl.”

Closing your eyes, you let your head drop back against Eddie’s shoulder as he fondles you. 

“You have any idea how many times I thought about your hands on me like this? And other ways?” you ask, your breath bitching when his thumb brushes over your nipple.

“And what about your hands on me?” Eddie asks before pressing hot kisses against the side of your neck. 

“Mmm, thought about that too,” you admit. “But I mostly thought about my mouth on you.” You unzip his coveralls and drop to your knees, pushing his boxers down so you can take him in. Precum pearls at the tip of his cock, threatening to drip down the shaft along the thick vein that runs through it. 

You wrap your hand around the base, giving kitten licks to his leaking slit. 

“Don’t tease me, please,” Eddie whines, cupping his own balls briefly just for the extra sensation. 

You move them out of the way, settling in a bit more. “You mean like this?” you ask salaciously, pressing little kisses along the underside of his erection before sliding your tongue along it. 

The man whimpers like a damn puppy, clenching his fists and flexing his thighs in a feeble attempt to hang onto his sanity. 

“O-Okay, yeah, please, fuuuuuck,” he groans as you take all of him into your mouth. His legs twitch, and his knees nearly buckle and have him crumpling to the ground. “Yeah, right there…shit, thas’ perfect.”

Eddie’s pretty moans encourage you each time you bob your head and envelop him in the warmth of your mouth again. One of his hands rests gently on the top of your head; not grabbing or forcing, simply resting there as if he needs to be touching you in every possible way that he can. 

“Christ,” Eddie says with labored breath as he looks down at you with heavy-lidded eyes. “I’ve imagined those pretty lips wrapped around m-my cock so many times. But fuck…nothing beats the actual sight of it. Love watching as I disappear inside your sweet little mouth.” 

His words have you moaning around his cock, sending delicious vibrations throughout his body. It’s enough to have him teetering on the edge. The hand that isn’t resting in your hair comes up and rubs over his face as he drops his head back and stares at the ceiling with unfocused eyes. Whimpers spill from Eddie’s lips like a prayer, and you start to move your head faster, trying to let your jaw hang looser. 

“Shit, baby,” Eddie manages through panting breaths, “I-I’m not gonna last.”

Keeping up your motions, not pausing for a moment, you moan around him to let him know what you want. You’ve dreamt — both daydreams and sleeping dreams — about him finishing inside your mouth and you need it to come true. 

“Yeah?” Eddie asks. Another moan around his throbbing dick is how you deign to respond. “So close, princess. Being such a good girl for me—shit. My sweet girl has such a sinful tongue.”

His words have you practically dripping, and you need nothing more than for Eddie to peel your soaked panties off of you. One of your hands slides up and cups his balls, which has him practically keeling over. 

“Fuck! Babe, I’m gonna—I’m gonna, shit, I’m cumming.”

Eddie’s warm release fills your mouth, and the tangy taste is like heaven on your tongue. You make sure to milk him for everything that he’s got before you pull off and swallow it all. A little bit dribbles down the side of your mouth, but you catch it with your thumb and pop it into your mouth, making sure to get every last drop. 

“Holy shit,” Eddie says, trying to catch his breath. “C’mere.”  He tosses his coveralls and boxers aside and helps you off your knees and into the bedroom. “Show me that perfect fuckin’ body of yours.”

Anyone else ever saying that to you in your life would make you self-conscious and be tempted to hide yourself. But Eddie makes you feel safe and desired in a way you never thought possible. He wants to see you like this. It’s a dizzying thought.

You comply, heat blooming up your body towards your face as his gaze is trained on you while he makes himself comfortable up against the headboard. Every little movement, his eyes track it. It’s like you stripping down bare is a class he has to take and he’s the most studious student there ever was. By the time you’re slipping off the last offending item—your drenched panties—you’ve already forgotten that the heap of your clothes is there at the foot of the bed. 

Crawling up the mattress to him, you’re about to straddle his waist when he shakes his head. He scoots down a bit so his head is resting flat against his pillow.

“Want you to ride my face, sweet girl.”

The request catches you by surprise and you can’t help the pinch that forms on your brow.

“Are you sure?”

Instead of a sexy or witty remark, Eddie looks you dead in the eye so you know how serious he’s being. “If you don’t sit on my face right now, I will die.”

Leave it to Eddie to bring the theatrics into the bed with you. Still, you give him a skeptical look as you raise an eyebrow. 

“You might die if I do,” you say. 

“Bullshit,” Eddie says as he reaches for you. Despite your reluctance, you let him pull you up higher towards his mouth. Eddie knows you though and can tell there’s something else you want to say. He looks at you imploringly, doe eyes blinking up at you.

“No one’s ever even eaten me out before you did,” you admit. It surprises Eddie, but he puts a pin in that for later—right now he really needs you to sit on his face. 

“Well, let me show you what you’ve been missing out on, babe.” He gently tugs you up so that your pussy is hovering over his mouth. “Now, I’m gonna eat you out, and I need to hear your beautiful noises, yeah?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fuck,” he moans as he wraps his hands around your thighs and lowers you onto his lips. His tongue glides through your folds and fucks in and out of your hole. You seize the opportunity to grind your exposed clit against his nose. 

“Eddie, feels s’good,” you whimper. 

Eddie moves away for a second, and you frown at the loss of sensation. “I know you can be louder than that,” he grins before resuming his previous position. 

Nerves flood your body. You’re not used to being loud during sex; no guy before Eddie had even given you that urge. You will yourself to relax and let him take care of you, your hands gripping the headboard as you ride his face. 

“Yes, Eddie! Holy fucking shit,” you cry out, feeling his hold on your thighs tighten. “You’re gonna make me cum all over your face.” 

Eddie just gives a muffled hum of approval, moving his tongue but keeping his head still so you can keep rhythmically pressing your clit against his nose. His tongue is magic, fucking in and out of you like he can’t get enough. 

Your release hits you hard, and you lean back to brace your hands on his thighs as you ride out your high, practically screaming your moans loud enough for Peter to hear back on campus. Ironic that his persistence for a second date drove you into the arms—and bed—of another man. 

You keep whimpering “Eddie” over and over again as you come down, a pathetic little mewl that has him melting. He gently lays you on the bed and hovers over your gorgeous body, pressing kisses to your lips, smearing them with your own slick. 

“Love how you say my name, sweetheart,” he murmurs, a slight growl in his voice. “Also love how you taste.”

The word “love” plays on a loop in your head. You want to hear him say it about you. You want him to make love to you, not just fuck you. Could that fantasy ever come to fruition?

The touch of Eddie’s hand on yours interrupts your longing thoughts. He brings your palm to his cock, and you instinctively wrap your fingers around the hardened length.

“Got me hard again, baby,” Eddie hisses, “like a damn teenager or somethin’.”

You can’t hold back any longer, and the words spill out of you. “Inside me, Eddie,” you plead. “Please.”

“You don’t have to beg, but I’d be lying if I said I hated it.” He smirks, watching as your hand glides up and down his erection. He hasn’t been this turned on since…well, since he came home to you wearing his clothes two nights ago. 

“Please, need you inside me, wanna feel how nice you fill me up.” You open your legs wider, and Eddie situates himself between them. Your pussy clenches around nothing, desperate for some friction. 

He’s got one hand on your right breast, the other holds his cock. “Ready for me?”

“Yes, yes, God yes.”

You feel him push into you, and you instinctively arch your back. His calloused hands slide around your waist as he gives slow, gentle thrusts until bottoming out. 

“How’s that? Y’good?”

“So, so good.” 

His thrusts get deeper and more intentional, and he grins when he hears the small moans escaping your lips. 

“E-Eddie?” Your voice is a strong whisper; it’s all you can manage with the way he’s pounding into you. 

“Yes, princess?” A shiver snakes its way down your spine at the nickname. Princess. You’re Eddie’s princess. 

You stumble over your words, flustered by the new pet name and anxious about how your next request will be received. “Can you, um, say what you said the other night?”

Eddie’s brow furrows in confusion as his hips keep a steady pace, unruly thatch of pubic hair deliciously grazing your clit. “I said a lot the other night, baby,” he chuckles. “You’ll have to be, uh, a little more specific.”

You try and push away the embarrassment, reminding yourself that you’re safe with Eddie. “When you said y-you were going to fill me so good and knock m-me up,” you try again, squeezing your eyes shut in anticipation of a bad reaction. 

Eddie groans and gives an involuntary hard thrust of his hips. “Holy shit, you’re telling me you like that?” He throws his head back when you nod. “Fuck, baby girl, you have no idea how hot that is to me.”

“So hot,” you agree with another feeble nod of your head. 

Eddie grips your waist and flips the two of you so he’s leaning back against the headboard and you’re in his lap. “Shit, Princess. You want my babies, huh? Want me to fill you with my cum, huh? Won’t let any drip out of you, gotta keep it all in there.”

Your eyes practically roll back in your head. All you want is his babies, to walk around with a swell to your belly because Eddie Munson fucked you until he got you pregnant. 

“That’s it,” he continues through gritted teeth, “I know you can take it. Such a good girl, wanting all of my cum.”

“Y-Yes, Mr. Munson,” you whimper pathetically, “I’m your good girl.”

Mr. Munson has his brain short-circuiting, and his hips snap upwards at a rapid pace. He wants this to last forever, but the way you look and feel has him on the edge of release once more. 

“Fuck, ‘m gonna cum. Call me ‘Mr. Munson’ again, baby,” Eddie pleads, pupils blown wide as he begs to hear your beautiful voice. 

“Mmm, want your babies, Mr. Munson!” You watch as he throws his head back at the sound of your moans, keeping his frantic pace. “Ri-Right there! Yes, yes, yes!”

The two of you come down from your highs together, you slumped against his chest and his hands resting on your bare back. 

“M’pretty sure that’s the best sex I’ve ever had,” Eddie finally manages through heaving breaths.

You peek up at him with incredulous eyes. “Really?”

“Hell fuckin’ yes.” He leans down and presses soft kisses along the expanse of your neck. “Everything about you turns me on so ridiculously much. It’s insane. The more I learn about you, the hotter you get.”

You grin to yourself and nuzzle your head against his chest. “Was the best for me, too,” you admit.

“Yeah?” Eddie cocks an eyebrow in disbelief. There’s no way he can compete with the younger guys throwing themselves at you…is there?

“Are you kidding?” You look up at him with a shy smile. “All you have to do is look at me and I get wet.”

“Good to know,” Eddie says with a playful smirk. He turns away for a moment before whipping his head back around, peering at you dramatically. “How ‘bout now?”

You press your lips to his in what’s supposed to be a romantic kiss, but your smiles get in the way. 

“Hey, uh, did you…” he starts, clears his throat, and then tries again. “Was I really the first guy to eat you out?”

You nod, downcasting your eyes in embarrassment. “No one ever offered, but I never asked or anything, so…”

Eddie takes your chin in his hand and pulls your gaze back to him. “You never have to ask me,” he murmurs, nudging his nose against yours. “I love being able to make you feel good. If I ever turn down eating your pussy, call an ambulance, because I clearly need medical attention.”

Giggling, you go to rest your head on his shoulder when you catch sight of the clock on his bedside table. “Oh, I have to go get the boys,” you say, trying not to sound too disappointed. 

“Pretty sure we left a trail of clothes around the house. You go get the troublemakers; I’ll clean up.”

You nod and lean up to press a tender kiss to his lips. He cups your face in his hands and just stares. “Don’t want to let you go,” he murmurs, just short of a whine. 

“I won’t be long,” you whisper against his lips.

“Hurry back,” he calls out dramatically, but he’s only half-joking. All he wants is you in his bed, tangled in the sheets, touching each other like you’ll never get enough. 

You reach for your purse and dig out your keys. “Wait, I don’t have my car. You picked me up from campus.”

“Take my truck, baby,” Eddie offers, taking his own set of keys from the coveralls laying on the ground and tossing them to you. “We can take the kids to the park or something then the Munson men will bring you back to your car.”

“Such gentlemen.” You giggle when Eddie bows, still fully naked. 

It feels like a scavenger hunt to find all the articles of clothing you’d shed, but you’re finally able to get dressed and dart out of the house to pick up Ryan and Luke from school. 

When you return back, small Munsons in tow, the scent of just-fried bacon wafts past your nostrils. 

“That is the best smell in the world,” Luke declares. He walks towards the kitchen as if he’s in a trance.

You follow behind him and Ryan and see Eddie washing a frying pan out in the sink. 

“Daddy!” Luke clings to Eddie’s hips, surprised to see his dad home early. He squeezes him tight, and Eddie has to swallow his emotions before turning around to greet him. 

“Hey, buddy.” He drops the pan and sponge in the sink and scoops Luke up and presses a kiss to his head, then ruffles Ryan’s hair. 

“Bacon smells good,” Ryan says, peering at the counter where the strips lay on oil-soaked Bounty sheets. 

“Thought it could be a snack for the ride to the park. How’s that sound?” Eddie asks, already knowing the answer. 

Both boys cheer, with Luke breaking out into some sort of kung-fu inspired happy dance. His little feet shuffle back and forth along the kitchen tile while his little hands punch the air. 

Eddie just laughs and tells his sons, “Go change out of your school clothes and grab your heavy coats.”

Once they’re out of the kitchen, you raise an eyebrow at Eddie and speak softly to him. “Hungry after such a vigorous workout?”

“A little.” He chuckles and gives a shrug. “But really, I was paranoid that it would smell like sex in here.”

You giggle and cover your mouth, worried that you’re too loud. The last thing you need is for the boys to ask what’s so funny. 

“You’re so fucking cute,” he whispers, kissing just under your earlobe. 

Ryan and Luke come back into the kitchen before you can respond, so you just stand there flustered. It goes unnoticed, since the boys ramble on as the food gets packed up, sneakers are tied, and doors are locked. 

“This is the best day ever!” Luke announces, opening the car door and climbing into his booster seat. 

“I agree.” Eddie throws a wink in your direction, and your stomach does a flip as you buckle your seatbelt. 

Maybe there is more than just lust between you and Mr. Munson. 

[courtforshort15]

Chapter 8

Pairing: Matt Murdock x FemReader

Word Count: 7,600

Summary: It's a Wednesday when the sky quite literally opens up above you. The Battle of New York rages around you, and the only thing that gets you through is the stranger standing next to you. Matthew Murdock is more than he seems, keeping you safe in a city that is literally crumbling around you, and even once the dust settles, his hand is the only thing you don't want to let go of.

Trigger warning: This chapter is a little dark and features the death of an un-named character. Read with caution if that might be triggering.

Chapter Index: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7

You speed up so that you’re at a jog, trying to move as fast as possible while keeping yourself upright, and though you can barely see him, you follow the blurred gray figure up ahead of you that’s moving swiftly. He takes a sharp left and disappears out of sight, so you push your legs as fast as they can go, hoping you don’t fall too far behind and lose track of him altogether. Your legs burn, the muscles straining and aching, but what’s a sore muscle in the grand scheme of things?

If you survive this, you won’t remember the sore legs, the blisters, the cut across your hand; you’ll remember the crumbled buildings, the ruined city blocks, and the fear that was so thick that it was a struggle to breathe.

Will you ever breathe the same again, secure in the knowledge that you’re safe? You’re not sure.

The smoke and dust in the city creates a brown haze, and it settles through the streets like a hot and suffocating blanket. Dodging this way and that, you keep to the side of the buildings as closely as possible, hoping that you’ll avoid being seen by the things still flying overhead, still unable to keep yourself from flinching with every crash and siren that pierces the city. 

You take the same corner Matt had taken, and it doesn’t take perfect vision to see the spilled concrete and rising flames of twisting oranges and reds that crackle and pop from where they burn just half a block down. Stumbling to a stop in the eye of a burning building, your breath hitches on a gasp. Even from the corner, you’re able to feel the heat brushing across your face, and each millisecond you stand still, it only grows in intensity.

It’s not long before you force your feet to take you closer, but you still hesitate longer than you would have liked. You’d been raised with the knowledge that fires were to be left to the professionals, to those with heavy gear and helmets and oxygen masks, but in a city that seems to be consumed by nothing but open flames, the people inside don’t have the luxury to wait for a team of firefighters to show up.

They’ll have to settle for the likes of you; vulnerable, insignificant, and completely overwhelmed.

Your spine does its best to turn to steel even as your fists clench at your side, shoving your panic down ruthlessly, and your tentative steps forward speed up back into a jog. There’s already a few people surrounding the building, digging frantically through the rubble and moving stone, wood, and brick aside to get to those who are trapped inside. It’s subtle, especially with your eyes the way they are, but you notice the second Matt becomes fully aware of your presence, his head shifting to angle towards yours ever so slightly as he helps another man pull away a large piece of stone.

You’re not sure where the other people came from - the streets had seemed deserted as you made your way to the subway station - but you marvel at every single person who has thrown their own fear and caution to the wind and jumped in at the prospect of someone else needing help. Time and time again, the people of New York have risen to another’s defense, banding together in the face of tragedy and destruction.

The scene is horrendous, something out of a twisted nightmare, blurry as it is in your limited eyesight. Brick and stone have toppled off of the building, leaving behind a large, mangled mound to sort through and push away in an effort to have access to pull people out. The front door is hardly visible with too many things blocked up against it for it to be usable. Most startling, however, is the large hole that sits around the second floor of the four story building, leaving an aching wound that surely must look worse from the inside than it does from the street.

Bloodied skin and frantic looks of terror and urgency decorate the faces of those helping to pull the chunks of debris away from the building, throwing their full weight into digging and shoving through the damage. Flames twist and pull, scorch and dance, as they burn the building from the inside out, heedless and apathetic to the sensitive skin and lungs of its occupants.

The horror of the destruction is only outmatched by the screaming.

Each cry scalds across your skin in a blaze hotter than the flames and causes you to flinch backwards, overwhelmed by the devastation and pain that oozes sharply from the wounded street, and for a split second, you consider turning on your heel and running away. You’re not brave, not entirely selfless when it comes to easing someone’s pain at the cost of your own sanity and safety, and you hate the way you hesitate when people are so clearly in need of help.

But one glance of the determination and grit on Matt’s face changes something in you, pulls you into a space that allows you to acknowledge your fear without sacrificing your desire to do good, and your feet are suddenly moving faster towards the rubble before you’ve had a chance to fully think about it.

The city may forgive your cowardice in the face of such dread and horror, but you never would.

Twenty feet in front of you, a small group of men and women shove away more debris, their faces dark with soot, and you immediately run to assist them, wordlessly jumping in and pulling brick and stone away from the door. Someone attempts to scale the large mound of debris, but he only manages to get so far up before his weight shakes some of the stone loose, sending them tumbling down. The person next to you pulls you sharply to the side as a brick flies down in your direction, and you send a brief but startled grimace their way. 

“Help me lift this,” says the woman to your right, her voice strained as she struggles to pull up a large clump of bricks that have stayed together through the strength of the concrete. You don’t hesitate this time, leaning down and sliding your hands underneath the object of ruin. The large cut on your hand protests loudly, but you ignore it, even as it feels like the newly-formed scab has ripped open under the pressure.

“One, two, three, lift,” the woman directs, words changing into a hiss as she begins to rise. The weight in your hands aches, but you struggle through it, putting all your effort into lifting it and walking a few feet to the side before dropping it. It hits the concrete with a crash, the brick finally breaking apart, but you pay it hardly any attention, following the woman back to the small section of the pile she’d been working at.

“This piece next,” you tell her, pointing at another collection of bricks, wiping a drop of sweat off of your forehead with your other arm. It seems the scab had indeed torn quite a bit, as you’d predicted, because blood is trickling down your arm from underneath Matt’s tie that is still wrapped tightly around it. The red stands out, even through the dust that lingers upon your skin, and you’re close enough to see the other woman wince.

“Are you–”

“Doesn’t matter,” you brush her off, already bending down to lift another piece. “Gotta keep going.” She drops the topic quickly, joining you at a crouch, and grunts as the clump slowly raises from the pile.

One by one, the two of you wordlessly move large pieces of brick and concrete to the side, trying to clear a path for people to get to the shattered window of the building where they can help people escape. It’s slow going for the pair of you, your efforts taxing and seemingly little in comparison to the group of men who are able to move faster. The heat around you builds, as do the cries of the people trapped inside, and it only makes you push harder.

“It feels like this isn’t going anywhere,” you remark with a gasp of air. You feel more and more discouraged by the second, the task at hand feeling far too large for your tiny hands. You hated this feeling of helplessness, even as you did everything in your power to help. The two of you shove a large piece to the side, and it falls with a groan and crack as it breaks apart slightly. The woman turns away from you, eyeing the small clearing you’ve made. 

“They’re close to clearing the door, I think,” she says. She bends over and rests her hands on her knees for a split second as she takes in a large gulp of air, but quickly straightens back up and follows you back to the side of the doorway urgently. “It’s helping, the people will be out soon. Hopefully.”

“Hopefully.”

The panic mixed with grit and determination on her face is only matched by yours, and you let it drive you forward.

As if on cue, there’s a sharp cry of relief as the top of the front door is revealed, about a foot of wood paneling finally visible behind the stone that had blocked the exit. The digging continues frantically, and the sight of it refuels you with renewed speed and strength as you move back to another piece of stone the two of you will be able to lift. 

The woman continues to look exhausted during the next two pieces you lift, face drenched with sweat and red with exertion. She’s just above middle-aged, with frail arms and wrinkles exaggerated as she frowns and groans under the weight, and her strength seems to be waning even as she does her best to work through. She’s clearly struggling even as she puts one foot slowly in front of another, and a warning bell sounds in your head. You watch with clouded vision as her form begins to lose its shape, hunching over the slab of concrete you’re moving to the side, and a flash of fear suddenly rips through you.

Her arms shake under the weight, face twisting in pain. “I can’t–”

“Don’t drop it,” you wheeze, walking backwards more quickly. Sweat continues to pour down your face, the heat of the intense labor creating a burn that slides upon your skin as it joins forces with the flames from the building. “We’re almost there.”

She wheezes, her red face rapidly increasing its shade. “I’m gonna–”

“No–” Your eyes widen with horror as her hands begin to slip, her face shifting into one of panic. Your foot is directly below the slab of brick, and instinctively you know there’s no way you can move your foot quickly enough to get out from under the brick, not without jostling her and causing her to drop it quicker. It all seems to go in slow motion, the sliding of the slab through her fingers, the beginning of its descent, and your body freezes in anticipation of the pain, one that will likely bloom viciously from the breaking of your foot.

Your eyes slam quickly shut as you tense up for the impact.

But suddenly, the brick is rising back up, the weight taken on by another force, one that even lessens its own load on you.

Eyes flying open with a gasp, you’re surprised to see Matt’s sweaty face in front of yours, mouth twisted in a frown as he lifts the brick, a quick groan slipping out. His eyes are wide open, the sun hitting them and highlighting them hazel, blindly aimed to the left of your ear as he holds up the brick. 

“Keep walking,” he tells you gruffly, pushing you gently but urgently along as he steps forward and off to the side. The woman steps out of the way quickly, and you catch the look of relief on her face. Your legs, still tense from the fear that had pierced through you, protest with every step, even as he takes the brunt of the weight. It feels like forever, but Matt finally indicates to place the slab down and out of the way, and you follow without question, grateful to let the heaviness of it go, rolling your shoulders as you stand up.

He’s directly in front of you a second later, steadying you and matching your grimace.

“You’re bleeding again,” he says, grabbing your arm and lifting it slightly, seemingly examining the blood he can’t see. “It’s as bad as before.”

You try to bring your hand back to your body, but his grasp slides to your wrist as he all but cradles your palm in his. A loud sigh escapes your lips, though you imagine it could almost be considered a hiss when he puts the slightest bit of pressure over the wound. “Can’t be helped, Matt.”

“No, maybe not,” he responds with a deep frown. His face has a few smudges of dirt on it, and his shirt can hardly be considered white at this point. “But maybe you should think about finding shelter again. I don’t want–”

You hate how tempting it sounds. “Absolutely not.”

He runs an aggravated hand through his hair. “I don’t want you getting hurt any worse.”

The smile on your mouth is as bitter as it tastes. “Everyone here is hurt, too. Including you. It’s not going to stop any of us. There’s still people who need help.”

“Fine,” he says with another frown, this one bordering on a wince, rolling his stiff shoulders before pulling slowly away. “But…just watch it, okay? You’re not helping anyone if you get yourself hurt. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”

“Why do I feel like that’s advice you never follow yourself?”

He snorts, the sound of it abrupt and out of place in a city that’s hardly standing, already moving back towards the entrance of the building that still blazes. “I hardly–”

“Hey buddy!” someone calls out a few feet away, waving in Matt’s direction. It’s the group of men Matt had been working with when you’d arrived, and it catches his attention as soon as the first syllable is out. Matt’s head turns swiftly towards them, tilting in question. “Can you come back over here? We need help with this one.”

Matt’s nodding before the man’s already finished. He throws you one last glance, reaches out to squeeze your uninjured in a subtle goodbye, before running back to the group. His touch is missed the second it’s gone, something about the warmth of his hand acting as soothing heat that almost overpowers the flames behind you. You watch him go, his form tense and seemingly ready for whatever challenge could come his way, choosing to focus on the task at hand rather than the unfamiliar ache in your chest that he leaves behind.

That’s…not something I can focus on right now.

You eye another piece that needs moving. Its removal will help clear an easy path for those trapped to get to the end of the sidewalk and out of the way, so you grit your teeth and look up at the woman to see if she’ll be able to help. She wipes her forehead briskly and pushes a lock of red hair behind her ear, head nodding at the unasked question.

She’s ready to move again after a small breather, and you ground your teeth together to prepare for the same. You turn your back to her as you make your way over, stepping quickly around the littered debris and squaring your shoulders.

But out of nowhere, there’s a loud, piercing cry behind you, the sound nothing but a sheer whine of terror, and you whip your head around just in time to watch a quick flash of color shoot straight into the woman’s chest before she falls to the ground, the scent of burning flesh and sight of a blurred hiss of smoke rising up. 

You stare at her in horror, your own scream bubbling up and leaving your lips before you can help it.

But before you can step towards her, before you can even fully process that she’s gone, the sound of heavy footsteps behind you catch your ear, and an ice-cold chill runs down your spine. Your breath stops in your lungs, your heart beats painfully in your chest, and your skin prickles in dread.

Slowly, you turn around, unable to help yourself.

Its purple, mottled skin stands out amongst the black of the road and the white sidewalk behind it, its posture stiff as it holds the large weapon. From where you are standing just ten away, you can barely see its features beyond the sharp beak-like structure and glowing eyes that observe the group of you with unrestrained hatred and a disturbing amount of glee. 

You wish you hadn’t looked.

All efforts to clear the door have temporarily stopped, each person staring at the alien with blood-drained faces. It holds its weapon close to its chest, claw-like hands wrapped tightly around something that looks like a trigger, and it’s almost like it's deciding who to kill first. 

Swiftly turning your head away from the sight, your eyes land on the remains of the woman that lay carelessly to your side, nothing more than an empty, beaten shell that had once housed a person, and the contents of your stomach roll and speed up through your throat. You barely keep it in as tears blur your vision, a hand rising up to cover your mouth as a scream, this one silent, parts your lips viciously.

While you stare in horror at the broken body to your left, another boom of the weapon rocks the city block, and it's quickly followed by the nightmarish sound of another person falling to the ground. It’s suddenly mass chaos as people begin running and diving behind the rubble, doing their best to protect their bodies as the thing advances. Someone makes a run for it, sprinting across the street in hope of reaching shelter, but there’s another flash of light, a startled scream, and a suddenly lifeless form that slams against the pavement. 

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” you chant under your breath, making a split decision to run and duck behind a large pile of bricks to your left. It’s futile, you know, but it’s your best shot.

Sure enough, before you can make it, before you can throw yourself down to the ground, an ear-splitting blast sounds from behind you. Your body tenses up, all too aware of what’s coming, waiting for something to tear through your body, and a scream leaves your mouth before you know you’ve opened it.

But the blast doesn’t hit you, it hits the pile of bricks you’d been about to duck behind, as if the being had miscalculated slightly and expected you to be diving to the ground a split second before you actually had. You had been too slow, or him too fast, and it had temporarily saved your life. 

The brick explodes next to you, and you let out the most piercing shriek you’ve ever had slip past your lips as you do your best to cover your face. In your terror and pain you quickly lose your balance, and it’s as if the force of the blast might as well have knocked you down itself. Your head smacks crudely against the concrete, the sound of your skull crashing down nothing but a solid crack, and the sound of your scream rattles your head and ears in a way that’ll haunt you for days to come.

Brick falls down over you as you lie there, each piece nicking you on its way down, and you can do nothing but huddle in on yourself and cry until the dust seems to finally settle. 

Your vision is hazy when your eyes manage to open, and you’re not quite sure if it’s solely because of the eyes that have needed glasses for years, or if it’s because your head had slammed to the concrete with the force of a bat slamming into a baseball thrown by a major league pitcher. You’re facing upwards, and despite the heat of the raging flames around you, there’s a slight chill that brushes your skin as you lay in the shadow of the skyscrapers surrounding you.  

A large form, gleaming from the strange shine of its blotchy skin hanging from solid angles that make up its inhuman frame, steps into your limited field of vision, weapon raised with fingers still on the alien trigger. Your heart stutters, your breathing stops, and dread curls down your spine as you watch it lift its gun again. It seems to relish the look of terror on your face, finding enjoyment in your panic, and there’s nothing human about the way it looks down on you.

There’s a voice somewhere in the distance screaming your name, getting closer and closer with every millisecond, but you’re well aware that the speed of the anguished sound isn’t going to make a difference, the person still too far away to change how your story is about to end.

There’s only one person who could be screaming your name, and you’re grateful that his lack of sight will keep him from the image of your mangled and burned skin.

You look past the being in your face, choosing that your last moments be that of the blue sky behind him. It doesn’t give you any sense of peace, not really, but the blue has inspired poets and musicians and artists for thousands of years, and will do just fine for the last image you’ll ever see.

The monster in front of you lets out a warbled sound that’s both grating and groaning, no doubt communicating to whatever part of his army can hear him, and you brace for the impact. But before it can follow through, before a flash of light can penetrate your body and leave behind a shredded hole of blood and flesh, it just….

…drops.

It crumbles just to your left, the mottled gray form falling to the ground bonelessly, eyes open and mouth still twisted in a snarl. For a second, all you can do is continue to stare at the sky, far too confused to know what’s just happened. The lack of a weapon in your face does not yet ease the fear, bone and muscle immobilized from terror, and your lungs still struggle to push air in and out of your body.

The site is silent for a split second as the group of people stare in disbelief at the fallen alien, but it’s not long before the screaming and sobbing starts again, though it seems to slip past you as your brain threatens to shut off. You feel numb all over, and just for a second, you give into it.

You must drift shortly into unconsciousness because the next thing you know, Matt’s face is hovering directly over yours, his mouth opening on words that take you a few seconds to process.

“--ey, hey, you’re okay,” he says hurriedly when you shift with a groan, and you’re relieved that sound has finally come back to you. He frowns as he runs a hand lightly down the side of your face, fingers grazing over something on your left cheek that burns at the contact. The contact is jarring, and you can’t help the way you flinch as you try to sit up. 

Matt’s face is alarmed at the movement, pressing gently at your shoulder until you lay back down reluctantly. “Woah, hey. Don’t move. You need to stay down for a few.”

“They’ll be back,” you respond with a cough, struggling against the hand that presses lightly into your chest. “We should–”

“I think they’re gone,” he tells you, and you notice the new cut that’s been added to his jawline, “all of them just…it’s like they’re dead.” His voice is absolutely bewildered, his eyes wide, head shifting from side to side as if struggling to comprehend the way the street had suddenly changed. “Whatever they were, they just fell to the ground. It’s the same with the other ones in the area.” 

You don’t ask him how he knows.

The wailing and crying in the background has continued, but you pay it no mind. Your energy is draining rapidly, and you don’t have the ability to focus on much more than the man on his knees next to you.

“I–” you’re unsure of what to say at first, just as perplexed at the sudden death of the aliens. You turn your head slowly to the side, jumping when you remember the being that had fallen next to you, its blank face not seven feet from yours, mouth hanging open lifelessly. From up close you can see every ridge in its armor, every line and splotch in its face, and it’s even more terrifying up close. 

You find it hard to think even as a shudder wracks your body. “Are you sure? I don’t–”

“I’m sure.”

“Ok.” A deep breath surges through your body, the first full gulp of fresh air since you’d fallen, but you cough harshly as the air leaves, barely managing to cover your mouth with your trembling hand. “But I should still-”

A shaky hand gently pushes down on your chest again, the one that had touched you on your cheek just a few seconds ago, and your eyes widen at the bright flash of red that stains his palm. 

Blood. 

His?

No. Yours. 

“Don’t move,” he says, voice a little more firm than last time. It’s got a thin veil of steel behind it, the same one that’s been present the past few hours, something that hints at a far more forceful interior that he perhaps doesn’t let others see. The tone doesn’t startle you, doesn’t stop you, as you’re far too focused on the fact that there’s another reason to get up on your feet. How had you forgotten about the people who needed rescuing? “Just lay here for a second.”

Your tone is incessant. “Let me up. The people in the fire need–”

Matt shakes his head, and the motion is suddenly more fuzzy than it had been just seconds ago. “Everyone got out, everyone’s fine.”

Your eyebrows raise in confusion. “How–”

His blank eyes rake over your face. “You were out of it for a few minutes. I–you hit your head really hard.” He shudders briefly. “I heard it from all the way over there.”

“But–”

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” he says as gently as he can, though he’s still incredibly blunt, “and you need to go to a hospital.”

For the third time, you move to sit up, but he stops you with a firm shake of your head.

“I’m going to pick you up. You shouldn’t be walking.” An arm reaches underneath your knees, pulling your weight closer to him, and it takes all of two seconds before you’re struggling against him.

“I’m fine,” you argue, pushing him lightly away, though he easily overpowers you. Your head continues to pound, the throb as forceful and abrupt as a loud snare drum, and it takes a second to gather your thoughts. “It’s just my cheek, it’s fine.”

“It’s not just your cheek,” Matt grunts as he finally snakes his arm again under your knees, holding a little tighter this time. He floats in and out of your vision, not because he’s moving, but because you suddenly feel like you’re swaying despite his jerky movements. “You’ve…the crown of your head. You have a gash, it needs stitches. As soon as possible.”

Oh. 

Your mouth parts in immediate shock, and without a word, your hand lifts and runs over your head, the wince on your face sharp and dramatic as the pain that suddenly flares out. Between the sting of the wound and the pounding in your head, it quickly becomes too much, and you’re very suddenly overwhelmed and having even more trouble focusing. 

“Yeah,” Matt mumbles, correctly assuming that the pain’s finally hit with full force. He lifts your arms before helping tie them loosely around his neck. You allow the movement easily as if your body has lost its ability to function with the new knowledge of just how hard you must have hit your head. 

Well…that makes sense.

“Maybe,” you begin slowly, your tongue feeling heavy in your mouth, “m-maybe that’s why I feel so…so dizzy?”

Matt hisses in displeasure, something about the slurring of your words triggering his need to move faster. You let an undignified squeak as he pulls you up and straightens his back, and though before you might have wrapped your arms around his neck tighter in a split second of panic, you find your arms suddenly too heavy to move. They flop uselessly to the side as if the muscle is no longer attached to the bone, just a dead weight of torn skin and fingers that tingle.

“Where–where are you t-taking me?” you slur out, and you don’t have the energy to make your voice louder or more clear. He picks up a swift pace, and you’re unable to tell which way he is going, only that he’s walking away from the people he’d helped save from the building. No one calls out to him to return, though the tears and cries left behind are present and haunting, and Matt seems to be single minded as he takes you away from the fire that still burns behind him. “Where–”

“There’s a hospital a few blocks away,” Matt responds immediately, his body randomly jerking you to the side as steps around something. “We can…we should be able to make it there safely now that there’s nothing to stop us.”

You try to wiggle out of his hold in protest, but your body refuses to work with you, especially once Matt seemingly strengthens his hold on you. All semblance of a fight leaves you as exhaustion suddenly hits you heavier this time. “Matt, no. You can’t carry me that far, it’s not–”

“Don’t argue,” he says tightly. “Your head…you’re losing too much blood. And you’ve probably got a concussion. You need a doctor.”

Your eyes flutter shut before snapping open again. “There’s…there’s people who are w-worse off. They-they need to be h-helped fir–” Something inside you abruptly cuts off your ability to speak, tongue feeling too heavy in your mouth before you’re able to finish your sentence. Your head falls backwards, strength rapidly draining from your bruised and tired body, and you hear Matt grunt when he adjusts slightly so that your head is resting on his shoulder as best as it can. Your eyes grow heavy, the lids making a valiant effort to stay lifted even as a sense of darkness beckons you below.

“Don’t close your eyes,” he tells you urgently as he continues to pick up his pace, his steps feeling more and more jarring as he quickly turns a corner. “Stay awake for me.”

You don’t answer, you can’t, and your body continues to do nothing but sag into his. He mumbles something, something you can’t hear, the blurred lines of his lips tilting into a deep frown. 

It’s a lovely mouth, now that you think about it. You wish you’d seen a smile such as his in the life that had existed before today.

Matt continues to move, his voice soft and almost warbled in your ear, and with every step, you feel yourself floating outside of your body, whatever string that ties your spirit to your physical form attempting to snap and separate. It’s nice, almost. The feeling of dread and terror slides away, the throbbing of every inch of your body beginning to dissipate. You’re aware that bells should be ringing in your head, some alarm that tells you that your sudden emotional and physical numbness isn’t a good thing, but you’re too far gone to care.

“Sweetheart,” Matt says with a shake of his arms, trying in vain to wake you up even as you continue to slip away, “you gotta stay with me. Don’t close your eyes, stay with me. I need you to–”

But you don’t hear what he needs. The black catches up to you, forces your eyes shut, and leaves you with nothing more to cling to.

—----

Matt’s heart falls into his stomach when you lose consciousness again, though he had known this was a possibility long before your words started slurring. The thump of your heart is growing weaker by the second, fading with every drop of blood that leaves your body and soaks his shirt, and every step he takes towards the hospital feels far too slow, far too unsteady. 

Despite his fear, despite the way he trembles as your head lulls back and over his arm, Matt’s navigation is on point. He knows exactly what block he’s on, knows exactly how many steps are needed until he’ll get to the corner he’ll turn at, and even while screams and sirens tear through the bruised and beaten city, his sole focus is your safety.

His sole focus is you.

You, who had run in the opposite direction of the crowd to help him, even while people ignored him standing there by himself on that apartment stoop, nothing more than a liability in the face of death. He could have found a way to find shelter on his own, he knows that, but he hadn’t needed to, not with you there, a beacon so bright that he didn’t know how he could have missed it before.

You’d been terrified, blood circulating viciously through your system with every uneven breath and pounding of your heart, but all he could think in that moment was that he had never met someone so selfless, so…fearless.

Matt isn’t fearless now, though. He’s in agony as distress and panic roll through his system relentlessly, a deep and abrasive flaying of his nerves with every second that slips by.

He’s a city boy, born and raised in the underbelly of New York City, a place that lives and breathes tension and apprehension, so in an awful way, the anxiety he’s feeling is familiar. He’s used to it crawling up and down his spine, long before he gained and familiarized himself with his abilities, but nothing could have prepared him for this. 

Matt vaguely recalls Stick talking about the war and wonders briefly if this was what he’d been talking about, but he quickly dismisses the idea entirely. Stick’s stories had always seemed so human, and there had been no mentions of aliens tearing through the sky and beating the city, his city, into the ground.

The brick of the wall next to him suddenly disappears, indicating that the building has ended and he’s reached the end of the block, and he takes a sharp turn, feet expertly avoiding the stone and brick that lies broken over the sidewalk, no doubt from a building close by that had been devastated by the force of an explosion. The smell of fire still lingers in the air, but he’s all but numb to the world, nothing existing but his feet, his path, and you cradled in his straining arms.

He takes a second to adjust again, hoisting you closer and further up his body, ignoring the slight burn as his arms accept the weight of you in a slightly different position. Like this, your head is now closer up by his, your silken hair brushing lightly his chin, and he can’t help shudder at the feeling. 

His adjustment jostles you enough that it startles out a low moan, one that is filled with a sense of pain that he wishes he could take from you.

“I know,” he mumbles into your hair as his pace picks back up again, following the path that his head has laid out for him, filled with the angles and pressures and temperatures that only his mind is able to process. It’s a clean shot down to the hospital, just three blocks down, and Matt can’t help but press a soft and short kiss to the crown of your head in relief. “I know, sweetheart. We’re almost there.”

He walks as fast as he can with you in his arms, and each step is filled with as much relief as fear, because what if…what if he gets you there in one piece, but there’s nothing they can do?

Your heart has slightly evened out, though it’s still weak and slow, and Matt admits that he has done little more than monitor it the whole journey to the hospital, hell, the whole journey since he grabbed your hand. Two hours with you and the sound has been seared into his memory, its pattern just as familiar as the back of his own hand.

It’s only a few more minutes before Matt’s walking briskly through the automatic doors, somehow managing to focus even as the sound of broken cries swarm around him on all sides. He’s walked in through the ambulance bay, he thinks, judging by the lack of furniture for waiting friends and family and a check-in desk. The lights are fluorescent, and he can hear their loud humming, so different from the soft lighting and calmness of a waiting room. There’s so much going on around him, so many people shifting and rushing past him, the wheels of gurneys screeching across the linoleum floor, and he can’t help but be temporarily overwhelmed. 

The scent of blood is so strong it’s sickening, and Matt has to swallow down the taste of copper that floods his senses ruthlessly.

He finds himself floundering for a second, unsure of which way to walk as chaos swells around him on all sides. Your blood is soaking his shirt with every second he wastes stalling there, and it’s finally enough to push forward. He’s hardly taken a step before a man is standing in front of him, his hand outstretched to stop his movement. Matt opens his mouth to protest, unsure of the man’s reasoning and instinctively wanting to keep going, but the man cuts him off.

“I need a gurney over here,” the man calls out sharply, turning his head to the left. He sounds frayed at the edges, too, and Matt can’t help but shudder. “Now!”

Relief floods through his system, and it’s only a brief few seconds before a gurney is wheeled his way. 

“Here, put her down,” says the man urgently, lowering the rails down so that it’s easier for Matt to lean down. He hesitates for just a moment, something in him suddenly unwilling to remove you from his body, and even though he knows he needs to place you on the padding, his heart protests so sharply that it startles him.

I don’t want to let her go.

But Matt pushes the thought aside, finally placing her gently on the gurney, pulling back as the man raises the railings back up and wheels her up against a wall a few yards away. He immediately begins hooking you up to various machines, one monitoring your heart rate, the other your blood pressure. Matt is moved lightly to the side by another pair of hands as a second nurse or doctor steps up, placing an oxygen mask on a face that feels like it’s been permanently scarred with the remains of blood and tears from the day.

“What happened?” the man asks as he begins a quick exam, watching as your stats begin to populate on a screen to the left of your head.

“They…she…” Matt struggles to find the words at first, language failing him for a second as the sound of your body slamming against the pavement echoes through his head. His fists clench uselessly at his side as he tries to focus on the facts of what happened instead of the way it had caused a panic so abrupt that he wasn’t sure if he’d ever recover from it. “She…she fell as she was running. One of those things–it shot at her and missed, but she lost her balance. She must have hit her head on something because she started losing blood and eventually lost consciousness.”

The man continues his exam, not bothering to look up, which causes a strange sense of relief. Matt’s not wearing his glasses, he’s pretty sure he lost them around the time he sprinted to your side when all thought and reason left him, and while it’s the least of his concerns at the moment, he’s still grateful the man has yet to notice that he’s not making eye contact.

He’d promised to tell you everything if the pair of you survived, and he’d stand by that promise gladly, but the idea of someone else questioning his sight made his skin crawl. This was a secret meant only for him and you, now. 

“When was this?” The man pulls Matt out of his head with the question, moving your head from one side to the other to determine the level of damage. He is thorough and almost detached in his examination, brusque and to the point, but Matt detects the tremble in his hand, notes the skin that is likely too pale, and knows the man is trying to remove himself from his own fear in order to focus on those who need him. 

It’s a trait that Matt will become achingly familiar with in years to come.

“How long ago did this happen?”  

“I, uh…probably about ten minutes ago. We were a few blocks away and I had to carry her here,” Matt responds, licking his lips with a nervous tick. “Is she–is she going to be okay?”

“We’re going to have to take her up for a CT,” he responds, pulling out a chart and writing on it, his chicken scratch sliding abrasively on the paper. “I have someone who can do that for her in a few minutes. Can I get her name and date of birth for her paperwork?”

Matt freezes briefly, because of course he doesn’t know your date of birth, and he never got your last name, but to admit that he doesn’t know either implies that he doesn’t know you, and it causes him to lurch in place.

He does know you. He does. 

Maybe the day hadn’t started out that way, but he knows you in a way he doesn’t know anybody else, because what else is there to know about a person other than how they’ll react when push literally comes to shove? He knows that about you now, already knows the kind of person you are, and he hopes he’s shown you equally the kind of man he is and wants to be.

On paper you are a stranger, but his heart knows differently.

So instead, he lies about the information the doctor is requesting and gives the doctor his father’s birthday as her own, simply changing the year so that it’s only a few years younger than himself. The doctor doesn’t notice the lie and simply nods, writing it down quickly.

“First name?”

Matt gives it swiftly. It’s a name that he’ll never be able to forget.

“And last name?”

It’s out his mouth before he can hold it back. “Murdock.” 

He doesn’t know why he says it, but it’s too late to pull it back, so he adjusts his form and does his best to not give away the false statement that had poured from him so easily like wine from a barrel.

“And you are?”

Matt clears his throat. “Matt Murdock.”

“Relation?”

“She’s my wife.” The lie comes out just as smoothly this time because Matt quickly realizes the advantage of the situation. He won’t have to leave you, he’ll be able to stay by your side as you heal, and no one will question it. Watching over you has become his sole focus since the sky first opened up, your strength in the face of your fear nothing short of addicting, like you were a flame that burned only for him, and he isn’t about to leave you now.

Your blood matted hair rests lifelessly on the padding he assumes is white, and something in him is glad he can’t see the red of it staining the sheets, knowing that it’s life leaching out from the gash on your crown.

You’re still as a nurse begins stitching up the back of your head, a thin needle expertly swaying in and out of your flesh as the wound gradually begins to close. His hands hold on to the railing tightly, ears catching the beat of your heart faster than the screen can count it, and he keeps track of every stitch that’s tied off. Slowly, the blood seeping out begins to lessen as the nurse continues her work, and when she walks away, Matt’s overcome with the sudden need to touch you. His hands are dirty with blood and sweat and ash, but he reaches down anyway and pushes a lock of hair behind your ear, resting his forehead against yours in a brief attempt to assure himself of your warmth, before placing a gentle kiss and pulling away.

He’s barely standing up straight before the nurse comes up and informs him they’re ready to take you up for the head scan, and there’s nothing Matt can do except pray while the wheels of the gurney disappear down the hall.

-

[princelylove]

Your Highness,

Once again I wanted to thank you for your interpretation of Bruno, as well as your interpretation of Mista. I love reading about the darker aspects of one’s personality without delving too far into the dark category. You perfectly encapsulate the not so lovely parts of their personalities in a very…biblical? way. You have a way with words that really captures the mind and soul.

I really enjoy any and all Bruno content, and have consumed it quite regularly for quite some time. On that note, I do have to say, your writing reigns at the top when it comes to his characterization as not only a man, but a man in the mafia. Bruno is very kind, and he gives his all to his community and those he loves. But he is also a mafioso. His job is to hunt down those who haven’t paid, and make them pay in blood. Of course he would have a vicious and dark side to him, which I believe you have captured perfectly.

On that note, I peruse your blog quite regularly, and I’m very excited to see any and all things you have to say about bruno. Thank you for your time, and I hope you have an absolutely ravishing evening.

xoxo

- ⭐️

Biblical? What's with you people and the God comparisons? I'm loving it, but please. Go into some heavier detail with the praise.

I think Bruno is a character that thrives off of balance and a lack of real clarity on what he does when he’s not with his darling. He’d never really allow you to see the things he does all day, so in my opinion, it’s better to leave them unspoken. I have a tendency to use a character’s voice when I write for them, you’ll often see me make intentional grammatical errors and use ‘improper’ English when not writing dialogue to fit how a character would talk about something. Bruno wouldn’t let you see him like that, but sometimes his hands slip (Or, I force his hands to slip) and you must. Bruno isn’t Bruno without both. 

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but my favorite type of horror is implied. Implications are a lot more frightening than flat out saying it, erotica works the same way- it isn’t attractive if you shove it in my face. Get into the mood. I could go into heavy detail, and I will if the situation calls for it, but it’s often better politely stated and suggested. “He bashed someone’s head into a desk and then came home all needy” just doesn’t hit the same as “Bruno keeps flexing his hand as he pesters you about your day.” 

Sometimes I’ll focus on the wrong details for that very reason. Instead of focusing on Bruno’s excuse for working late, I’ll spend a paragraph focusing on the blood under his nails that he missed, or the smell of someone else’s cologne lingering on his suit, while he talks in the background. I think it provokes more. If I were using a different medium, I’d find a way to blur his voice. 

For a character like Bruno, I cannot go into heavy detail without it ruining everything. You don’t get details with Bruno. You don’t get clarity, you don’t get assurance, you won’t even get facts. He’s not a good man, you must be aware, but you don’t need to know the dirty, filthy side of him. He puts that aside the second he comes home. If he missed something, he’ll just do better the next time.

But you can’t really have Bruno without the filth. As saintly as Bruno is, as kind as he makes himself out to be, he isn’t clean. The first time we meet him, he beats a fifteen year old. (Giorno is NOT fifteen to me but for this argument’s sake, ignore it) He also doesn’t apologize for doing it. Ignoring Bruno’s morals to paint him as he wants to be painted… isn’t for me. He is not what he wants to be. 

I think Bruno’s neither of his personas, but what exactly is that? Your personality is classified as a bunch of characteristics in a bag you take everywhere, what exactly is Bruno if not these acts he puts up? You don’t know! And you never will. 

But! Going into heavy detail really works with some characters. I don’t want to lock myself into “I only focus on the seemingly unimportant details” because I don’t, I will get into it if the situation calls for it, I just find with Bruno it’s better to pay attention to your surroundings. 

As for Guido… It bothers me quite a bit when people leave out his romantic nature. Of course it’s fine to see him differently, I’ve enjoyed quite a bit of fanfiction about him that was the opposite of my interpretation, but he’s just a big mush to me. Hurt him, tug on his leash, he’s very willing to take what his darling has to give. Aha. But he’s totally casual, don’t get him wrong, you can totally just have a little fling. No long-term feelings at all. (He’s got a ring in his back pocket.)

[cutiepiemina]

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄ What you do to me ⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

Neteyam x reader short fanfic ❤

༺ fluff ༻

༺ friends to lovers ༻

༺ confession scenario ༻

༺ Neteyam being a sweetie ༻

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

´´Neteyam´´

your voice called out.

´´Neteyaam´´ once again, this time finally snapping your friend out of the trance currently engulfing him. Slowly he looks away from the sweet little pond the two of you sat at and down over at you with half lidded eyes.

´´You okay? You kinda been just staring at the water. You got something on your mind?´´ you ask the older boy seated next to you.

´you´ is what he thinks, yet he doesn´t answer, instead he quietly stares at you with his yellow glowy eyes, making you ever the more curious.

His muted stare starts to unsettle you, so you give him an eyebrow raise along with a playful shove. ´´what r you starin at bro, snap out of it ´´. Saying ´´bro´´ at least a million times a day is something you had picked up from the sully boys from being around them so much. He looks away from you and with his large hand he picks up one of the pretty fluorescent rocks, that illuminate the nightly darkness and throws it into the pond, following it with his eyes. All the while you´re trying to understand what might be occupying his mind.

´´ Did Lo´ak do something? Ooor are you worried about the sky people? Either way you know you ca-

´´Just ... what is it about you ´´ your sentence is interrupted midway as he blurts his thoughts out to you, in a low voice.

´´The hell?´´ you laugh out, you couldnt make any sense of him. ´´What about me? Did I do something?´´

He shifts his gaze away from the pond and back to you again, his lingering stare reminding you of the close proximity to him. It was like he was looking inside your deepest soul thoughts. What the hell got this dude acting like this?

´´Y/N .. tell me what is it that you do to me. I cant understand this. ´´ his face suddenly closer than before, mustering yours. You could feel the atmosphere shift, afraid and unsure of the direction this would take.

´´ i cant explain it very well, but I can also not deny that you have an effect on me like nothing else, I feel it here´´ he motions toward his stomach.

Your heart starts beating faster. He was never like this before. His expression seemed undecipherable, so stern and focussed yet so relaxed.

´´Do you not feel it Y/n? Dont you see it?´´

´´Wha-´´

´´I cant think straight because of you, my mind is constantly consumed by you. I want to be around you at all times. I even dream of you. Do you really not see? Because I see you. I see only you.´´

´´Neteyam what are you saying´´ his face inches éven closer, your heart racing even faster and his eyes starting to light up.

´´I dont know my dear. This is the effect you have on me. It´s overwhelming honestly. You are perfection in my eyes.´´

And in your stomach there was this feeling again, this cribbling feeling you were never able to interpret that you would feel when he stood closely behind you when correcting your form with your bow, the feeling when you lock eyes for a second too long as you watch him skillfully hunt in all his glory, the feeling when you eavesdropped on him ranting to his brother about you.

The same exact feeling he got each time you would fix his hair, smile up at him as he towered over your smaller self, worriedly tend to his wounds or just sing with the other girls.

But of course neither of you knew that the feeling was mutual, neither of you even understood what to make of this feeling. Therefore all you knew to do was keeping one another close.

The moments went by and you remained silent, which made the boy that had spilled his heart out to you grow worried. Did he say something wrong. ´´Please.. I´´ he splurted out so vulnerable, almost panicked. ´´Being around you feels .. right, it feels like its supposed to be this way, me and you, please tell me, do you feel this connection too?

Still unsure what to say, you instinctively grab his hand to his reassurance. He calmed. He looks down at your intertwined hands and back at you again. The feeling was indeed mutual.

´´Oh Neteyam.´´

´´Yes ?´´ He responds eagerly, both of your hearts beating uncontrollably, as you inch closer and closer ...

[neteyamb]

ashes to ashes: chapter five

pairing: loak x f!omatikaya reader

summary: as a healer, y/n had taken an oath to treat every patient with their best interests in mind. this hadn’t been a problem, until loak’s petty injuries become a routine. she has to swallow her pride and feign concern, feign kindness, and face the ugly hate that has been brewing between them for years. 

tags: enemies to lovers, slight angst, best friend kiri, emotionally constipated aka on-brand loak, language

word count: 1.4k

notes: im on vacation, my deepest symapthies go out to myself for making me wait so long to find out what happens next

⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･

billie bossa nova: love when it makes you lose your bearings / it might be more of an obsession / you better lock your phone / and look at me when you're alone / won't take a lot to get you goin' / i'm sorry if it's torture though / that heavy breathin' on the floor / i’m yours, i'm yours 

nova – a star that suddenly increases its light output tremendously and then fades away to its former obsurity

loak jumps back from you, heart in his throat like a deer caught in the headlights. he attempted to choke out a response, but his mind was slurred and his mouth had become dry, leaving his lips parted with a shaky breath. his mouth opened and closed repeatedly, almost as if he was trying to remember the fluidity of your own against it. he shook his head in a thrashing manner, snapping out of his daze. your fingers itched to touch his face, arms, chest, anything, but you were unsure if it was out of pleasure or anger. 

slowly, loak began to speak, tearing you away from your inner conflict. he rolled his tongue over his lips before a coy smirk appeared. “same time next week?” you felt your face heat and opaque hate flooded into your stomach. of course he was toying with you; this man had so readily disregarded your career just moments ago. forcing yourself to hold his gaze, you take the bait. “are you deaf? i said get the fuck out of here,” you step towards him, shoving at his chest. “i hate you. don’t bother coming back to maiya’s hut, you’ve made it clear we aren’t needed.” your face sours at the image of him being left to fend for himself with a serious injury, but you quickly crush the worry when you recall his earlier words. he can go fuck himself.

✶✶✶✶

loak’s eyes darken as he walks away, fingernails forming deep crescents in his palms. it was his own fault. still, he blamed you equally; it was you that had approached him, you that provoked him into a physical fight. he only has so much willpower, and your baiting taunts were spoken through soft, inviting lips. for a split second, he was smug about having shut you up the way he had, but it was gone in an instant, replaced with the ugly, consuming fear that you would never speak to him again. despite your complicated relationship with him, you were always keen to jump back in the fighting ring the next day, and he had let himself rely on it too much.

he entered the family hut with his head tilted down, pointedly avoiding kiri’s questioning stare. he looked dishevelled, and his lips were swollen. she furrowed her brows. only y/n could make him as riled up as he looked; he would brush anybody else off with ease. “did you just suck face with a poisoned fruit or something?” his shoulders rose towards his ears as a shiver ran up his spine. “almost.” shocked, she dropped the wooden bowl she had been carving out. it rattled against the floor, completely forgotten the second it had escaped her grasp. “you made out with someone? you?” kiri has never been known for being subtle. or slow. he could see her visibly piecing together a puzzle in her brain, connecting this to their last conversation. “wait–” she starts.

loak closes the gap between them in four strides, frantically looking around the empty room as he presses a hand over her mouth. “quiet,” he hisses. kiri’s loud voice is muffled for a few seconds before she resorts to licking a long stripe on his hand. he jumps back, wiping it off aggressively on her arm. “ew, what the fuck?” she pays his complaint no mind. “you what the fuck. you kissed y/n?” she made a show of theatrically looking up at the roof in distress. “you’re in for it now.” he leans back, apprehensively looking away. “it was an accident,” he responds in defense. she balks at him. “look, i know. just forget it, i’m sure she’ll do the same.” it was an optimistic thought. 

✶✶✶✶

you had not forgotten about it. days had gone past and you were still livid; loak had ruined any possible salvation of your relationship with the words he had said, and then proceeded to shove his tongue down your throat. still, you were angrier at yourself for the way you had readily accepted it.

avoiding him had proven itself to be a difficult task; dinners were communal and you could feel him staring you down expectantly, daring you to slip into your usual snide banter with him. what's worse is you had additionally been dodging kiri; you were sure she knew something was up, and you had no interest in being reminded.

you trudge into maiya’s hut, desperate for a distraction. you had yet to retrieve fresh plants from your regular gathering area this week, and stock was running low. she was beginning to ask questions. maiya’s eyes were trained on your stiff movements as you began to grind a paste, and she was worried that if you were to grit your teeth any more, they’d be sandpapered down to nonexistance. she placed a warm hand over your own. “y/n. take a break, maite. you can join me after you get some more supplies, hmm?” maiya was an assertive person; you knew she wasn’t asking for your permission on this. unwillingly, you set the bowl down and pick up your basket.

✶✶✶✶

loak was growing impatient. if that day by the creek made him uneasy, this was threefold. without your daily arguments, he had no outlet for pent-up stress and had been snippy with his father on one too many occasions. jake wasn’t a fan of this new, brash behaviour, and the lecture loak had received about it only served to make him more restless. you were like a nova; condensing all of your muddied emotions to suddenly clash divinely with his own, only to dissolve from his grasp all at once. abrasive frustration was eating away at his insides as the days went by, and he was more angry than ever. despite its overbearing presence, he couldn’t bring himself to regret what he had done. 

loak watched your sudden dismissal from the healing hut, and determinedly recreated your footsteps into the forest. behind you, his eyes traced the slight sway of your hips and the gentle thumps of the gathering basket against your thigh. loak’s face twisted; he knew it was unfair of him to be irritated that you didn’t notice his presence once he had gotten close, but you had been actively ignoring him the whole week. he hadn’t gotten a rest from kiri’s interventions either; she would moan to him constantly about how it’s all his fault she’s been shut out by you and that he’d better fix it. he’s deluded himself to believe he was confronting you because of the soft spot he has for his sister, but it was in reality entirely for selfish purposes.

heart pounding, loak grips your bicep and flips you around to face him. “do you think this is funny? because i’m not laughing.” his syrupy eyes bore into yours, voice gravelly. you instinctually back up a bit, the small of your back now digging into rigid bark as you shift under his gaze. the corner of your mouth twitches in discomfort at his proximity. “what, have you gotten yourself another wound you want me to fix? not gonna happen, buster,” you respond evasively. loak grew more frustrated, but after so much silence, your voice rang in his ears as if it was his first time hearing it.

loak exhales sharply through his nose, involuntarily taking a few steps back. he doesn’t give you a chance to relax as he jumps head-first into the root of the issue. “i know you play a vital role in the clan. i never should have said you didn’t.” you eye him quizzically, waiting for him to continue. he struggled to keep himself from arguing against his own words, but if he wanted you to listen, they were unavoidable. “you were right to say my grandmother would be insulted,” he adds awkwardly, gesticulating poorly with his hands. it left a bad taste in his mouth, but after mulling the accusation over for hours on end, he came to the gruelling realization that it was accurate. he had never been disrespectful to moat; in truth, he actually admired healers a lot for the work they did. but watching as you would cradle him, care for him, all while having the upper hand, forced him to confront new feelings he was scared of. he will admit, it was a little immature in hindsight. you offer him no mercy, remaining tight-lipped and unmoving. persistent, he grunts his final proposal to you with an uneven tone, as if the word was unknown to him. “truce?”

⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧ ‧͙⁺˚*･

notes: get a room you guys

taglist: @weasleytwinwheezes @mrslandryy @amortencjja

[my-head-is-an-animal]

Unfinished Sentences

A Ben Mendelsohn fic.

Summary: You’re a actor who’s known for your indie work, but when you get a job working for on Secret Invasion with Ben Mendelsohn as your partner in crime, things may get complicated.

Story Masterlist

Chapter 3

You’d had a great time in Berlin, receiving the occasional text from Ben, nothing too personal, just a check in here and there and to ask the dates you’d be in London so you could meet up.

    As it turned out, you’d only be there for a few days as you’d booked another job that would take you to Sweden for another twelve weeks. It was exciting and Ben was pleased for you.

    You’d made it dinner instead of coffee as a celebration of all your hard work, nothing was awkward, you missed his hugs and his smiles and his laugh. You missed him, but you didn’t dare tread anywhere near how much. You’d thought about that kiss far more than you wanted to, it had even been your final thought moments before you fell asleep on more than one occasion.

    You couldn’t make it obvious though, you wanted to keep Ben as your friend and you couldn’t stand the thought of him not being around to laugh and joke with.

    When you said goodbye again, you found yourself looking up at his beautiful blue eyes and your gaze briefly flickering to his mouth, before turning away. Something about it must have caught him off guard as well, because when you turned back, there was the lightest shade of pink fading from his face.

    ‘See you in a few months then.’ He said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

    ‘Looking forward to it, Mendo.’ You smiled and went your separate ways.

    Ben’s POV

He couldn’t believe himself. Over two months of trying to get over you, to forget that kiss, to forget how soft you were in his hands, how beautiful you looked in every light, and all it took was one dinner to remind him of how much he wanted you.

    Ben had fallen for you sometime during filming Secret Invasion, he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment, but he remembered wandering into work one day, seeing you laughing and his heart swelling to an uncomfortable size. You hadn’t noticed, you were still your hard-working and filthy-mouthed self. It was one of the things he adored about you, your sense of humour was the same as his and you never took any offence to his one liners.

    He knew he was erratic, but you always made him feel a calmness in his mind, like he suddenly had something to focus on that consumed all of his attention.

    The night you wrapped on the show, his only intention had been to have a good time and give everyone a great send off, but the cute dress you wore with those subtle heels, disarmed him.

    The whole night was spent trying to tear his focus away to something else, he found himself in need of distraction from what you’d told him. The second he’d found out about your dream, he couldn’t help but let his mind run riot, the prospect of kissing you overwhelmed him and anything else was just dizzying at best.

    So, when he’d felt you latch onto the lapels of his jacket and pull him into your hotel room, he couldn’t believe his luck. The small whimpers and moans you made as he tasted every part of your mouth was a euphoria he hadn’t known before. The only thing that made him stop was the taste of the last shot you’d both had, he couldn’t go any further at that point, neither of you were sober enough to justify it as any more than a mistake. For him, being with you would not be a mistake.

    He thought about you far more than he wanted to, he couldn’t shake the kiss, the suggestion that you may have been okay with more, it consumed him in a way that he tried not to allow.

    After dinner, he definitely caught the flicker of your eyes towards his lips, but your immediate reaction told him everything he needed to know. You missed him in the same way, but nothing could happen between you. It hurt.

 The premiere approached far quicker than Ben was ready for. You’d text back and forth a few times, found a new rhythm in phone calls and your relationship was back on track, to the point where you could make flirty jokes again without the added weight of what had occurred between you.

    You’d had a great time in Sweden, but you were exhausted and going to bed far too early for Ben’s liking.

    ‘I know, I wish we could go for a drink or something.’ You said, over the phone and yawning soon after.

    ‘Yeah, me too.’ Ben admitted, walking into his own hotel room only a floor below yours. ‘But you’ve been working hard, so get some rest and I’ll see you tomorrow.’

    ‘Goodnight, Ben.’ You yawned again, making him chuckle.

    Ben tossed his phone onto his bed that was far too big, but very much to his liking and thought for a moment. You usually called him Mendo, that was his nickname and he loved to hear you say it, but the only times you’d called him Ben was the very first time you’d met… and that night.

    It reignited something inside him. Ben tried very hard to put it from his mind to some success. He put on his white open collar shirt in preparation for the gathering that would take place in only an hour.

    He went simple, white shirt under a dark grey suit, no tie, but nice shoes. He picked up his sunglasses and made his way to the hotel lobby where a few people were waiting to take him to the premiere.

    ‘We’re just waiting on Y/N.’ The assistant said, making him smile.

    ‘She riding with us?’ He asked, surprised that you wouldn’t have your own ride over.

    ‘Yeah, she was doing an interview that ran late, is that okay?’

    ‘Course, course, she’s a hard worker, so not surprising.’ Ben chuckled.

    ‘Oh, here she is.’ The assistant moved past Ben to where you were walking across the lobby with your PR assistant, going over the interview you just did.

    Ben felt his heart swell in the same way it had done when he realised how in love with you he was. You wore a gorgeous gold mini dress, one that sat so elegantly on your body. The slight V that elevated your chest in the most delicious way, your strong, powerful legs on show, slotting into a pair of gold, glitter heels that elongated your body and made Ben’s mouth water.

    Your makeup was minimal, but gold accents around your eyes made them pop. Fucking hell, you were beautiful.

    Ben smiled when he caught your eye. He approached you, holding his hands out as if to indicate how good you look.

    ‘Wow, stuck for words, I must look good.’ You joked.

    ‘Can’t argue there, my Angel.’ He chuckled, leaning in to gently peck your cheek, it was then he noticed the back of the dress. Two single straps that tied around the back to keep it in place, but the entirety of you back was exposed, the dress starting again at the very bottom of your spine. ‘Absolute gold standard.’

    You rolled your eyes but laughed anyway.

    Ben held out his arm for you to take, like the gentleman he was and walked you to the car. He held the door for you, before getting in himself. Your driver was good, he remained quiet while the two of you caught up in the back seats, only speaking to let you know you were close to the venue.

    ‘Fuck, I’m so proud of you, Y/N.’ Ben shook his head. ‘All this work you’re doing, you must be having the time of your life.’

    ‘I really am.’ You smiled, biting your lip. ‘Have you enjoyed your time off?’

    Ben shrugged. ‘I’d rather be working, but things will pick up soon enough, they always do.’

    You finally arrived and Ben stopped you from getting out of the car just yet. He rounded the car, waving to the photographers eagerly snapping away at him.

    ‘You think this is good?’ He called. ‘Wait til you see a real star.’

    Ben opened the car door, to see you laughing and smiling at his antics.

    ‘Your majesty.’ He said, holding out his hand to help you out of the car.

    He loved the way your hand glided over his, it only spoke of your elegance as a person, how beautiful you were and now every photographer was fighting to get the best shot of you. It only made you laugh when Ben stood back with them and pulled his phone out to take his own picture, he just couldn’t resist.

    Eventually, he knew he needed to do his job and actually stand for promo shots. The assistants did their job to get you both across the carpet to where the interviews were taking place, but Ben couldn’t keep you out of his eye line.

    He loved watching you work, the way you spoke to people and smiled at everyone, never with ego or arrogance, just grace and elegance. It made him try harder, treat people better, not that he wasn’t kind, but he knew he could be blunt and rash. When you were close, he made sure to catch your eye and make you smile at him.

    People asked about how close you were, but you were both very good at making it seem like you were just very good friends. It technically was true, but you both knew something was simmering under the surface, something you’d promised yourselves not to act on.

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[recoveringdreamer]

TIMING: current PARTIES:  @closingwaters & @recoveringdreamer LOCATION: darkling lake SUMMARY: teagan and felix find their spa day interrupted by teagan's 'duties.' CONTENT WARNINGS: references to parental death & sibling death

Rage was the tempest of emotions, a turbulent storm churning with sorrow and anger. Like thunder and lightning colliding in the dark, relentless sky that made up the core of the nix’s heart. She didn’t tremble, she didn’t shake. As she set up each new trap in the surrounding forest of the lake, Teagan was the calmest she had been in weeks. For as long as she could remember, the storm never broke, it never ceased to be a calamitous eruption, but now? 

All Teagan could feel was a slight rumble. She’d failed before, but this time would be different. She’d be far more calculated and far more careful. Having a desperate wish, Teagan would heed the ghosts of her regrets and failings, accepting that her heart would always be haunted by hundreds of ghosts. There would be no exorcism, and there would be no turning back. She’d done that enough when she let her family die. 

“Okay, next we’re going to polish this off with some spritz.” A sweet aroma danced in the air as the bottle was squeezed after the face mask was removed. It had been days since the traps were set, with no bites. Patience would just have to be taken over satisfaction, and as she waited, Teagan would enjoy her times of peace. Invite Felix over, who was quickly becoming something of a very good friend. They needed someone to help them relax, and Teagan needed the same. It only made sense to utilize her time that way.

“How are ya feelin’? Posh and relaxed?”

This was definitely new. Self care wasn’t something Felix had ever really been taught, even before their mother’s death. While she had been more worldly than their father, she hadn’t had much time for face masks and spa days, too busy teaching her children how to live in two worlds without knowing they’d one day be plucked up and forced to exist only in one. After she was gone, of course, the concept itself became laughable. Their father went into survival mode, consumed by his grief and his vengeance, and there was no room for anything outside of it. ‘Self care,’ in that cabin in the woods that was half home and half jail cell, was getting a few hours of sleep before being shoved out the door to patrol the perimeter and kill anything that dared to break it.

So this was a new experience. But Felix didn’t think it was a bad one. They weren’t sure what they were supposed to be feeling with the weird clay resting upon their face, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. And Teagan, as always, was good company. She seemed serious about making sure Felix had a genuinely relaxing day, and they didn’t think anyone else had ever done that before.

“It’s nice,” they confirmed, smiling a little. “Relaxing. What about you? Are you having fun? It’s your spa day, too. And we’re in your house, so, you know, I think it’s important that you enjoy yourself, too.”

A soft smile laid sweetly on Teagan’s face, eyes twinkling with joy that Felix managed to actually feel relaxed. Everything she was, was meant to protect. Whether it was with claws and fists, or with gentle whispers and lingering affections, she could do both. “Good, good.” She booped Felix’s nose playfully, spritzing herself now that she was done taking care of them. Always a second thought, always last to be fed. “Look at me, I’m relaxing, too, enaid. I’m having loads of fun. Taking care of others is my nature.” Her smile was reassuring, and she planted a kiss to Felix’s forehead before grabbing her cane and heading to the kitchen for some snacks.

“All…right! I made a delicious tray of goodies. Stones, berries—not the ones that will make us tired grumps—cheeses, and some salami for your carnivorous side. None for me though. Too much salt!” The tray was placed down with a quiet and metallic clink, the arrangement something like a Pinterest photo. And honestly, that’s exactly where Teagan got it from. She spent hours on Pinterest and YouTube trying to figure out how to do it all. Thankfully, it came out beautifully. “Go ahead and dig in. I’ll get the wine and–” A chime interrupted her thought, freezing Teagan into one spot for a few beats before she collected herself. Traps have been set off. They needed to be checked.

“I need to do something.” She excused herself calmly, lying with a bright smile as she walked backwardly toward the door. “Enjoy the heated blanket and snacks, and I’ll be back as soon as possible.” Taking one last look at the chime, Teagan bursted into a sprint, straight toward the trap connected to the alarm.

Felix looked at Teagan carefully, trying to ensure that she really was relaxing. She worked herself a little too hard, sometimes. They hadn’t known her long, but they could still tell. She reminded them of their oldest sister, in that way; taking on too much responsibility, taking care of everyone but herself. But she did seem to be relaxing now, and they offered a satisfied nod. “Okay,” they said, “good. That’s good.” The last thing they wanted was to be a burden here, to be someone Teagan sacrificed her own comfort for. That sort of thing never sat right with Felix.

They grinned softly at the mention of snacks, nodding their head as their stomach rumbled quietly. Everything she mentioned sounded wonderful, but the salami was especially tempting. The jaguar had been restless ever since their last fight with Razor, the one that left them with an impressive chunk missing from their arm. The injury was carefully hidden beneath their sleeve, and all the other results of the fight were similarly put away beneath clothing. Teagan, Felix knew, would worry, and they couldn’t explain what had happened without explaining the Pit as a whole, and then she’d want to help, and… Felix couldn’t risk anything happening to her. Not for them. It wouldn’t be worth it. “This looks great,” they told her, looking at the spread with an impressed expression. “You did a really good job.” 

A chime filled the room, and if Felix hadn’t been looking at Teagan, they might not have thought much of it. But the way she froze up, the way she stilled… There was something about it. And then she was excusing herself, walking backwards and — they heard her feet slamming against the ground as she ran. 

Felix was on their feet in an instant. Whatever was going on, it was clearly something dangerous. Why else would Teagan run like that? Shifting enough to allow them to move with all the quick silence of a prowling jaguar, the balam took off after the nymph, silently apologizing as they stalked behind her.

Leaving Felix to their devices felt awful, but there was a responsibility that the nix had taken. She was never one to falter or leave jobs half-done or completed poorly. Seeing her mission through was her only option, until her very last breath. She hoped that wouldn’t be the case, but nature and Fate didn’t deal in hope, didn’t feed on the prayers of the pawns it moved. Teagan’s journey was a dangerous one, she knew that going in, and she accepted it anyway because that time would be different. 

There was more to fight for, a red line to protect. It grew taut with each aching step she took as she hastily made her way through the trees, weaving through the familiar paths until she threaded herself into her destination. Teagan’s eyes widened with wonder and excitement, her focus completely on the hunter struggling to notice anything else, much less the low crunch of dirt behind her.

“Help!” She exclaimed, just as all the others did, not yet realizing what she was there to do. “There’s a trap. Be careful,” She wheezed, frantically trying to remove the small plate of spikes embedded in her thigh. Watching the scene made Teagan laugh, finding it humorous that the stranger had yet to catch on. Though…that was strange. Wardens normally noticed by then, and the woman wore everything a normal hunter would. Could she be a ranger? If she was, then she would still die, but if she was just a human? Teagan bristled at the thought, inching forward.

“What are ya doin’ out here, lass? Dangerous, even in the middle of the day.” Teagan quirked a brow.

“What?! Just help me! Just…” The woman froze, looking every direction and struggling with more ferocity. “Ma’am, you have to come toward me. Please. Get behind me. There’s a—no time! Just listen to me!”

Teagan’s brows knitted together and she looked behind her, seeing nothing. “What ya blabberin’ ‘bout? It’s only—” The sound of something whizzing past the nix interrupted her question, followed by the sound of cracking bark. Whatever she was aiming for, she missed, and Teagan quickly sprang into action by tackling the now confirmed hunter and punching her repeatedly to prevent any more arrows from being shot.

Where was Teagan going? She wasn’t the type to pause an interaction abruptly without good reason, Felix was confident of that. There was a clear sense of purpose to the way she moved, too; a determination that would have certainly been absent had the goal she was striving towards been anything less than important. Whatever she was doing, it mattered. They suspected it was dangerous, too; otherwise, why not invite Felix along? 

But Felix could handle dangerous. Teagan might not know that. They knew they didn’t give off the vibes of someone who could take care of themself. They didn’t like violence, even if most of their life had seen various people insisting that they partake in it. More than anything, Felix wanted a life of peace, a way to live without having to fight anyone. But they’d still fight to protect their friends, if they had to. They’d still help Teagan with whatever it was she was moving towards, with whatever that chime had meant.

She slowed, and Felix slowed, too. Their brow furrowed as they heard a voice. Not Teagan’s, not anyone’s familiar, but it was calling out for help. Was that what Teagan had come out here for? Was the alarm to tell her that there was someone in the vicinity who needed help? Felix took a step forward, craning their neck to see what was going on. There was… a woman. She looked like she was trapped in something, though Teagan’s body blocked most of the view. 

Shifting their ears, Felix listened in on the conversation, but their confusion only grew as they did so. Teagan wasn’t helping the woman; not right away, at least. And the woman was… warning her? About wh—

An arrow interrupted the balam’s thought process. It embedded itself in the tree next to their head, and they dropped to the ground in anticipation. But no more arrows were fired. Instead, there was the sound of knuckles hitting skin. It was enough to spur Felix forward, the scene laying itself out in front of them. The woman in the trap, with the crossbow full of silver bolts. Teagan, punching her. Blood on the ground that didn’t belong to the nix. 

For a moment, Felix was fourteen again. Their father’s claws were dripping red, a man hanging in his grip. These people, mijo, they want to hurt us, their father had insisted quietly. They do. So we hurt them first. What happened to your mother won’t happen to you, to your siblings. We’ll make sure of it. 

It made them sick then, the same way it made them sick now. Felix took another step forward, trying desperately to get between Teagan and the woman in the trap. “Teagan, stop! What — What are you doing?”

Felix’s voice was like an alarm bell, a tolling that called for all violence to cease. The meaty and squelching thumping instantly turned into silence, which was quickly replaced by panicked breathing. “I’m-I’m…” Teagan choked out, finally, trembling when she locked eyes with Felix. That’s when it clicked, why the woman had tried to protect the nix and why she had been quick to attack. The hunter was no warden, and she never would’ve been a slayer to begin with—it was daytime. She was a ranger, and she would’ve most certainly hurt Teagan’s friend had she not attacked.

Looking at her bloodied and bruised hands, the fae took a few moments to respond to Felix’s question, unsure and terrified. They had just become friends, relaxing and truly connecting the way they were supposed to. What would Felix think if Teagan told them what she’d done? Knots weaved and tightened impossibly in her stomach, and she stood up to back away. She didn’t dare lock eyes with her friend. The rejection Teagan expected to be there would prove too much for her to bear, and she was terrified of what that would do to what was left of her heart. There was no way she’d be accepted. If her family couldn’t, then how could someone with no ties to her leave their arms open? Losing Felix was inevitable, Teagan knew that. She just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly.

“I…I set up traps. After-after one hunter, it started with a few.” A pause, if only to prolong their friendship. “After the second, a few more. Then-then…” Breath hitched in Teagan’s chest, tears streaming warmly down her cheeks. “Then my tail. He took my tail, and I held back as much as I could! I did! I did!” She wiped her cheeks, smearing stinging blood on her face, but hardly caring. “These monsters just take and take and take! When does it end? When, Felix? Because everyday, every night, I see what they did in my nightmares. They took my family, and I watched them do it.” Teagan’s eyes reluctantly landed on Felix’s, desperation filling them, and acceptance trickling down. “Who’s going to stop them?” She croaked, falling to her knees, right next to the still breathing hunter. “Who’s going to stop another child from sitting in blood like me?”

Felix was fourteen the first time their father came home bloody, eyes wild and face alight. They remembered the panic that set in at the sight, remembered running up to him with their heart pounding. Their mother’s death had been so fresh then, so recent, and the idea of losing the only parent they’d had left had been terrifying. What happened, papi? They’d asked desperately, tracing their hands over his arms in search of injury. But there had been none to be found. The blood wasn’t his, he’d told them. There was someone outside. She’d stumbled onto the property, and Felix had never known if she was a hunter tracking them down or if she was just a human who’d gotten lost in the woods. Their father never specified, and they’d been too afraid to ask; they didn’t know, even now, whether or not their father had known the answer. 

She’d been the first. She hadn’t been the last.

It wasn’t a common thing. They were far off enough into the woods that people finding their property was rare. Sometimes, they went a year without anyone stumbling onto it. Other times, there would be several spread across just a few months. Every time, though, regardless of the frequency, the end result was the same. Someone came home covered in blood, with a body behind them. The ground outside that cabin in the woods went from a sanctuary to a graveyard, with the parts of the bodies that weren’t ‘put to use’ buried in the dirt in mass unmarked graves. Felix used to keep count of them. Some desperate attempt at retribution, they thought, some quiet way of pretending that they weren’t a part of it. But they lost track, after a while. There were so many bodies. There was so much blood. The ground was rotted with it.

They missed their family. There was no doubt about that. They ached with the absence of them, yearned to see their siblings again, wished they could ask their father for advice on how to get out of the mess they’d made for themself with the Pit. They missed them, so much that it hurt like a physical thing. 

But they didn’t miss the blood.

And here was more of it. A different forest floor, a different nearby cabin, but the blood smelled the same. The ranger in the trap was barely breathing, half-dead and very likely entirely unaware of the conversation happening around her. Felix couldn’t take their eyes off of her, couldn’t stop staring at the blood. Their throat felt tight, like they were fourteen again, like they were still in that cabin across from a father they both loved and feared trying desperately to remember how to breathe. “You can’t — It isn’t an excuse,” he choked out, eyes darting to Teagan’s. “I get it. I do. But you can’t… You can’t use your grief to — to justify more violence. Because where does that end, Teagan? Where does — It keeps going. Over and over and over again. You kill her, and — and her child comes to avenge it. And then — and then you kill them, or they kill you and someone avenges that, and it’s just — This isn’t preventing anything. This isn’t stopping anything. It just… prolongs it.” 

They moved forward carefully, hands trembling. They did something they’d never done with their father — they knelt down next to the broken body in the trap, and they pressed their fingers carefully against the side of her throat. There was a faint thump against their hand, and they closed their eyes for a moment with a sigh. “She’s alive,” they said quietly. “She’s still alive. Can I — I want to… To get her help. To take her to a hospital, to try to save her. That — Teagan, that’s how you stop it. You can’t end violence with more violence. You can’t stop death with more death. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what you went through, but you can’t keep using it as an excuse. You can’t. You’ll never move on if you do.” 

Their father certainly hadn’t, and Felix didn’t want that for their friend. They didn’t want her to be in a cabin in the woods someday with children who loved her just a little bit more than they feared her, didn’t want her to be the monster in her children’s closet the same way the hunters who had hurt her family were the monster in hers. Teagan’s experience was one of a child who lost everything and grew to avenge it, but Felix’s was one of a child who lost everything because of their father’s desperate vengeance. They knew what this sort of thing led to. They wanted better for her. “Help me. Please, help me get her to a doctor. It doesn’t have to be… this.” 

Teagan could tell memories were flooding Felix’s mind, a reel of horrors projecting and flickering painfully. Had they bore witness to the same, or something just as vile? Two sides of a coin, flipping endlessly and growing the nausea in their stomachs. But the source of their disgust was not the same. Felix made that clear when they found relief in the beating of the hunter’s heart. She supposed they didn’t understand, couldn’t, no matter how hard they tried. 

True, death would never cease if the nix continued to fight. Why was she supposed to move on, though? Why was it okay that the ranger attacked with no regard to the beautiful life she could’ve ended, had the bolt met its mark? “You don’t get it, then.” No one ever could. Teagan watched through a slit of the door as her family fought, one by one being taken out like common animals. Watched as Catrin crawled to the door of the closet her daughter had been thrown in for her safety. 

At ten years old, Teagan had witnessed what true evil was, how quickly everything could be torn away. At ten years old, she sat in the warm and sticky blood of her family until it grew cold and thick and dry against her skin. How was that fair? How was it right that Teagan let go of a monster so she could continue and possibly do the same to another family? “I can’t let you do that,” She shook her head vehemently, voice thick and riddled with pain.

“If she lives, then she will heal and hurt someone else. The cycle never ends because hunters will never stop. Who else is going to stop them? What if they hurt you? I won’t let them hurt you. I can’t! You don’t know what I’ve seen!” Teagan all but shrieked, begging Felix to turn around, to let their friend do what she must. There was no malice, no anger toward the Balam. There couldn’t be. “Felix,” Teagan began, crawling to them and hovering her hands over their cheeks so she wouldn’t stain his skin. 

“We can’t stop the violence, we can’t, I know that, but we can stop them. That’s what I’m trying to do. I don’t want the families they hunt to live through what I did. I don’t want families to be cut in half because of their traditions!” But Teagan saw no budging, Felix’s eyes were resolute in their decision on helping this monster. She sighed, scooting away and stumbling to her feet as she searched for a direction to run. Watching Felix defend that thing was hard enough, anything more would just be salt in the wound, burning worse than usual. “I won’t help. I won’t. But I…I won’t stop you.” She continued to back away, receding into the trees. “I won’t hurt you. I never want to do that. You’re my friend, okay? I just…I just can’t help. I can’t.”

“Teagan,” Felix murmured gently, “you’re not the only one who’s lost people.” Hadn’t everyone? Wasn’t that what this life was? Not just for supernatural beings like the two of them, but for the hunters, too. For the humans whose loved ones had disappeared in the woods near the Mendoza’s cabin, for the children whose parents never came home and the parents who turned off lights in empty bedrooms at the end of every day. Felix understood the ache of it. Their mother was shot like an animal in the woods, her body left to rot because someone was afraid. People did terrible things under the guise of fear and protection. The blood on the forest floor was proof enough of that. 

They tensed a little as Teagan approached, the same way they used to tense when their father got near. Her hands, like their father’s, wouldn’t hurt them. They knew that. Everything their father had done had been done in the name of protection, just like Teagan. But there was blood on those hands, anyway. And what did it matter what the intention was? What did it matter if it was done for protection or for vengeance? It didn’t change that terrible shade of red. 

“You don’t know that,” they insisted. “Maybe she lives and goes right back to hunting, but maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she grows. Maybe she becomes better than she was yesterday if she just — If she gets a chance to try. People will never change if you snuff them out before they can try to, but if you give them the chance, they — People are capable of being better. They can work towards it. They can try to be more than they were yesterday. They can. And everyone — everyone deserves a chance to do that. She does. You do. Everyone does. What she does next is on her, but what you do next? That’s on you.” 

They had to believe that. They had to. Because if people weren’t capable of change, what did it say about them? About the father they loved just a little more than they feared him, about the siblings who’d done what they were told no matter what shade of red it left their hands? Felix wanted the hunter to be capable of change, wanted Teagan to be capable of change, but there was something selfish to it, too. They wanted a second chance. For themself, for their family, for everyone. 

Teagan scooted away from them, and disappointment tasted acidic in their throat. She wasn’t going to help them. They’d figured that might be the end result. But… maybe it said something, still, that she wouldn’t stop them, either. Maybe it meant something for them both. “You’re my friend, too,” they said quietly. “This doesn’t change that. Not for me. But I need to get her help. I need to try to make sure she’s as okay as she can be.”

“O-okay.” She finally managed to whisper painfully.  It felt like betrayal, just for a moment, the way Felix fought back so hard. There was no changing their mind, but maybe, Teagan thought, their desperation said something more. The use of everyone wrote some much in a story that she hadn’t yet heard. There was no judgment, not really. Just hurt and disappointment. 

The balam had their own pain, and the nix had hers. Teagan could respect that, especially for a friend that wouldn’t become a ghost of the past. There would be no longing wishes left from a broken relationship. That was a relief, even as heartbreak set in motion with each respective decision. With each trembling step toward the darkness Teagan had led herself into, digging further still. 

“Don’t do anything foolish, okay? I’m sorry I ruined our day.” That’s what she did best though, wasn’t it? She did it constantly with her family, and she was doing the same with the new connections she’d made. Still, the pain lay thickly in Teagan’s chest every time. It wasn’t easy doing what she must, but the pain was deserved. She knew that. Because all broken shards are cut when one wasn’t careful while they picked up the pieces, and Teagan broke into several more as she made her exit. 

She agreed, and it felt like a weight off their back. It felt like an accomplishment. Felix had tried to argue with their father, so many times. They’d put their foot down only to have it forcibly removed, had been called so many terrible things and accused of such awful atrocities just for wanting to save a life. And for a moment, they’d been afraid Teagan would do the same. They’d been afraid that they couldn’t save her or the hunter or anyone at all. But Felix put their foot down and, for once in their life, it was respected. It was honored. It was a good feeling, even if there was still a tightness in his throat and a nausea tugging at his gut. 

“Nothing foolish,” they replied with a small smile. “And it’s not — It isn’t ruined. Just… rescheduled. Okay?” The friendship could survive this if they let it. It could. Felix could save someone, for once. Could save more than one person, maybe, if Teagan took their words to heart. (They wouldn’t hold their breath on that, though. Felix’s words had never counted for much. They’d always known that.) And tomorrow, maybe, they could try again. Tomorrow, the rain would wash the blood off the forest floor, and they could move forward. It was a pretty thought. 

They heard Teagan leave, swallowed their feelings in response. Carefully, they extracted the injured hunter from the trap and lifted her. They’d get her away from Teagan’s cabin before calling for an ambulance — less questions that way. 

Standing, Felix began a quiet trek out of the woods. Behind them, blood soaked into the dirt. 

They pretended their hands weren’t covered with it, too.

[yuukei-yikes]

you are so right about takane and kano being besties. they are late night gossip buddies!!!!!! any contradicting canon can rip that from my cold dead hands

they would 100% goofingly share the worst hot takes with each other as some kinda game. or like. point at something random and be like "i need your strongest opinion on this right now." just…. the friendship vibe that i can only succinctly sum up as "late night gossip buddies"

and personally i feel like post-str takane would probably be the person kano would be most comfortable with confiding in because she's just the right ratio of outsider-to-insider. i mean yobanashi deceive is basically just kano traumadumping to ene right lol

LIKE FOR REAL!!!! EXACTLY!!!! SRRY IN MY LAST ASK I ALREADY WENT OVER KANO&TAKANE PARALLELS BUT MAN THEYRE EVERYTHING TO ME THEY ARE BEST FRIENDS!!!! chaos duo for real.

kano making all these parallels. knowing takane is just like him fr because she's also playing a role, she's got the same kind of twisted personality, how out of all people he chooses HER to open up to for the first time, says he's not looking to make her dislike him, says he's jealous of her ability to doubt people & her sense of self, also in the novel route THEY DIE TOGETHER....

he sees himself in her and how he'd like to be. like theyre so so SO similar. like him she is playing a role yet takane manages to know who she is and what she wants or likes or hates. like him she's also someone who's lost their most precious person yet manages to move forward and keep going without resenting anyone and in fact going out of her way to help someone else. kano is so insanely jealous of it all💗

sorry. i will go insane about takane AGAIN i literally just did in the other ask but teehee MORE

takane's resilience, determination and will to live and help and love and forgive despite everything always gets me. she's so warm and loving *punches wall* its why i love her so much and also why i hate second manga route so much. takane would never kill herself. shoves this in ur face

like that's why takane gets opening eyes in the first place!!!!! opening eyes was the ability that was allowing azami to appear before others inside the daze and once she gives it to takane, azami is at the brink of disappearance (holds head remembering azami keeps giving out her snakes as a way to save as much people as possible even if it means dying BUT THATS NOT WHAT WERE TALKING ABOUT) but this translates into takane as well. like even if she is dead she wants to be out here. she will make a place for herself. takane has the will to live, and will always make it out of anywhere as long as she's got herself, even if she's alone. she literally projects herself into existence even when dead thats how damn stubborn she is. determined to tell haruka her feelings as SOON as she realises them without thinking of what that means for their relationship because that's just not her priority, her priority is to let him know in the first place. AUUUGGHH. TAKANE BEST CHARACTER EVER I LOVE U TAKANE also why harutaka is so awesome because it's cute that out of everyone its TAKANE with all these characteristics who gets the love story arc and then actually manages to have a happy ending with someone as loving and caring as haruka!!! and it goes both ways!! except im not talking abt haruka so!!! sniff sniff... str harutaka... (holds head)

erm. yeah. anyways. sorry for going crazy again. i just love takane💗 LITERALLY I JUSY MAKE EVERYTHING ABT HARUTAKA SORRY OK RIGHT KANOBACK TO KANO

i think kano is the kind to notice all these things and be like Man. wtf. but like i said!!! i hate the antagonistic light of it. i know kano's an ass and thats sorta the point, but isn't he like. like the shit he does to takane and the way he talks of her from his pov grazes the unlikable. because we all love piece of shit morally gray characters like kano like i LOVE kano, he's such an interesting character and i love all the nuance u need when consuming kagepro and seeing everything he does but shit likethe way he acts with takane goes a little over the line to me bc it has no real basis other than angry at takane by proxy to shintaro and/or the jealousy (but then again its not like the jealousy is made into such a big deal in the first place and its just a passing comment) like it just seems unfair and uncalled for. like he's REALLY taking it out on her and then played as a joke.

SO TO ME. KANO HELPING TAKANE WITH HER BODY MEANS A LOT. he can go cry outside LATER. to me that is his way of apologizing too. in his little twisted way!!! like not only is here ur body but i will hold you and dry you and get you clothes and some food and water. takane allowing someone to pick her up and see her when vulnerable and kano helping someone his sister adored it just rewires my brain. theyre both silent thru it all but make it through. AUUUGGHHHH IT WOULDVE BEEN SO GOOOOD

AND YEAH EVERYTHING U SAID 10000%% takane being the perfect ratio outsider to insider is SUCH A PERFECT WAY TO PUT IT AUUGGHH also gossip buddies prank masterminds BEST. FRIENDS. FOREVER. for real!!!!